— Thanks, Aaron. It’s been awhile since I roasted something over a campfire.
— Your boy there don’t talk much. Is he mute or just shy?
I felt the heat of embarrassment warm my cheeks as I realized how rude I’d been. I smiled sheepishly.
— I can talk. I’m just quiet, I guess.
— Well, that’s awright, Ben. I can talk enough for the both of us. I’m named after Aaron, Moses’ brother, in the Bible. Ever hear of him? Well, ol’ Moses, he weren’t a very good speaker, so God told him to speak through his brother Aaron when he needed to tell that ol’ pharaoh in Egypt off. God told Moses what to say an’ Moses told Aaron what God said to say. Kinda like Sara here doin’ the talking for both of you.
Aaron chuckled at his little joke and turned the spit a quarter turn. While Sara carried on the conversation with Aaron, I set to work dressing the fish and finding long sticks to roast them on. I listened carefully to what they were saying, however.
— So what are you two doin’ down here on the Little Blue? Don’t you have a home?
— We did, but we got burned out of them. Both Ben’s and my parents died and we didn’t want to end up in foster homes. We’re almost seventeen anyway, so we can be emancipated soon.
— Well now. Emancipation is something I know a little bit about.
He smiled mysteriously and turned the spit again.
Just then, the lion roared again, this time long and mournful. It sounded so much closer, even though we had only walked a half a mile or so upriver. I started at the sound, visions of the beast attacking us from the woods next to us in my head, as I commented,
— Damn, that sounds close.
Aaron nodded his head sympathetically.
— His pen is right across the river an’ up that hill. His voice can carry for miles, but we’re less than half a mile away here. He sounds real lonesome, doesn’t he?
Sara said sadly,
— I feel sorry for him. Is he all alone now? Didn’t they have, like, five or six lions before?
— Yep. They’ve all died but the one. Died of exposure or sickness. The last one ate his brothers to survive.
We all shuddered in horror at the thought of the dire hunger that led him to devour his pride.
— The keepers tried to keep all the animals alive, but it was a losing battle.
— The keepers? They stayed while the power was out? Was the zoo even open?
— No, no, the zoo closed the day of the power failure an’ probly ain’t never gonna open up again. Most of the staff decided they needed to be home with their families, of course, helping them survive. But there are five dedicated keepers, who have no families of their own. These five have stayed all through the crisis. See that building up yonder?
Aaron pointed a ways up the tracks to a building.
— That’s where they live now. They tried living in the buildings at the zoo at first, but the stench drove them away.
— Stench?
Aaron shook his head and turned away, like he didn’t really want to think about it. It took him a few seconds, but when he answered, his voice was husky and sad.
— The dead animals.
We were all silent for a few minutes, during which time, Sara and I began roasting our fish. It didn’t take them long to cook and we immediately devoured them while Aaron ate his own lunch. Afterwards, we cleaned up the campsite a little. Aaron snapped a green branch covered with leaves off a nearby tree and used it to tamp out the flames of the fire. After it was out, he opened one of the train cars’ sliding doors, grabbed a huge shovel from inside, and carefully scooped up the hot coals from the fire. He laid the coals, still on the shovel, inside the train car. Then he pulled out four large plastic buckets and climbed the ladder attached to the outside of the train car to the roof, setting the buckets on the rooftop. When he saw me looking at him quizzically, he explained his actions.
— It looks a little dark to the west. It might rain later. Gotta make sure we have the makin’s for a fire later an’ rainwater is always better for drinkin’ than river water.
I was amazed at his foresight and efficiency. I realized that Aaron would probably be a great source of information if Sara and I were going to survive in the woods for the winter. If he would let us stay with him, that is. Aaron got out some fishing line, a bucket, and a knife. He surprised me with a great display of enthusiasm.
— Time for fishin’!
— Why? We just ate.
— You don’t wait ‘til you’re hungry to find your next meal, son. Besides, if rain’s a-comin’, the fish’ll be a-bitin’.
— How do you know?
I didn’t say it like a smart-ass; I was genuinely interested.
— I been livin’ in the wild for a long time, Ben. Every time before it rains, the fish want to eat as much as they can because the rain muddies up the water so they can’t see the food. After it rains, you may as well not even try to fish.
— You don’t have a fishing pole?
— No, I just have this string with my homemade hook. See? You can make a hook out of lots of things.
Aaron showed me the hook he had made out of a pop can tab. He had cut part of one of the rings off to form the barb. A string was tried to the other ring. When we got down to the river, he pulled what looked like animal guts out of the pail and impaled a small piece on his homemade hook. He offered some to me for my hook.
— Nothin’ better than entrails for baitin’ catfish!
We fished for about an hour and caught over a dozen fish, mostly catfish from Aaron’s hook and specialized technique. I didn’t know what in the world we would do with all those fish. Sara and I always ate what we caught almost immediately, but we were still full from our meal an hour before and I knew the fish wouldn’t stay fresh too long. Aaron knew exactly what to do with them, however.
After we cleaned and gutted a little over half the fish, Aaron filleted them and cut the meat into long, thin strips; he left the other fish alive on a stringer in the river. After he had prepared the fish strips, he opened the sliding door of another freight car, which had open vents all over the sides of it. In this car was a rack made of tree limbs. Aaron had me gather green sticks for firewood while he and Sara hung the fish on the rack. He made a fire under the rack using the wood I had found and a live coal he had saved from earlier. Then he placed a big tripod, also made of tree limbs, over the rack and covered it with a blanket, like a teepee with an opening at the top for the smoke to escape and room at the bottom to draw in air. It took a while for the fire to catch on since the wood was green and after it did, it smoked a lot, which was exactly what Aaron wanted. He said it would take a couple of days to dry it out enough to be safe to eat without refrigeration.
Aaron closed the door to the “smokehouse” and went back to the river to retrieve the rest of the fish. The lion roared as if he knew that Aaron had fresh food.
— Let’s go see what’s happenin’ at the zoo.
Chapter 18
City Zoo
We followed the river another half-mile until we came to a swinging bridge. Sara was excited when she saw it, remembering all the times she and her parents stood on the bridge making it sway back and forth. We scrambled up the steep bank to an opening in the chain link fence at the top. Sara delightedly demonstrated the effect of the bridge while I nervously looked around for possible loose animals. There was a foul stench in the air. I had smelled it a little down below in the river valley, but up here it was much stronger. Aaron saw me wrinkle my nose and shook his head sadly, saying only,
— The stench of death.
On our way to the lion’s pen, we passed many empty enclosures. It was sad to think that so many animals had lost their lives because of PF Day. No more depressing, of course, than the loss of human lives, but sad, nonetheless. I hadn’t even thought about the hardships faced by the animals in the zoo. After all, animals don’t need electricity, right? But in captivity, totally dependent on humans to feed
them, and dependent on food sources that are shipped in from other places, the loss of power had a devastating effect on them.
The few animals that were still alive were thin, mirroring the human population. The huge silverback gorilla and one of his mates had made it, but the other five gorillas had not. More than half of the African plains animals, like the zebras, giraffes, rhinoceros, and antelopes were still alive; none of the hippos made it, though. Two cheetahs were still alive, although very skinny, and all the tough little warthogs survived. Sara was afraid to continue to the chimpanzee enclosure—afraid that the baby chimp that she had loved to watch frolicking with his mother and siblings had died, but Aaron assured her that although some of the others had not made it, the baby was still among the living.
When we arrived at the lion’s enclosure, he let out a low mournful roar, like he knew we were there to see him. First we entered the viewing room to see him, but it was so hot in there, we came back out to the side of it. Aaron told me to climb up on the top of the small building and after I did, he handed the fish up to me and told me to toss them to the lion.
Just before I threw them in, the lion’s eyes locked on mine. His intense stare spooked me because it seemed like he was thinking that I was the food being offered to him that day. He crouched like he was ready to leap to the top of the building and make a meal out of me. His eyes had an eager gleam and his tongue licked his upper lip slowly in anticipation. I hurriedly tossed the fish to him, one by one, but his gaze didn’t leave me until I hastily climbed back down off the roof. By the time I joined Sara and Aaron at the fence overlooking the enclosure, the lion was ripping into the fish like I had never been the object of his desire. However, I couldn’t shake the eerie feeling of being pegged as prey.
We left the zoo after feeding the lion because the smell of rotting flesh and the sadness of the situation began to overwhelm Sara and me. After returning to the train, Aaron suggested we choose a car to sleep in. He said that there were several other homeless people who came back here at night after foraging for food in the city all day. They chose to sleep in the woods, though. We chose a freight car about halfway down the train that was half-filled with boxes of hardware items—big spools of wire, tools, paint, etc. We decided that it would be advantageous, from a survival standpoint, to search through the boxes to find items that would help us. The car next to that one was filled with boxes that appeared to be from some kind of veterinary supply company because there were boxes of vaccines, antibiotics, medicines, and such. There were even pet supplies in there and we spent the rest of the afternoon searching through boxes in both cars. We were happy to uncover a box of large flat pet beds in the pet car. We took several out and used them for our beds in the hardware car.
That night Aaron lit a big fire beside the train. Out of the darkness, people started sifting in from all sides. It reminded me of a zombie invasion the way they silently appeared from the woods or from behind the train, and it kind of creeped me out. I could tell Sara felt a little anxious too, because she dragged me down to the river to get away from them. I think she was still freaked out that her brother’s gang might appear. I didn’t blame her.
After a while, Aaron came down to the river to find us. He was carrying a bucket, a big branch lit on fire like a torch, and three long barbecue spits, the ones you roast hot dogs over a fire with. He handed one to each of us and told us that he was going to teach how to gig frogs. He showed us how to creep along the banks of the river, shining the torch in front of us. When we could see the light reflected off the eyeballs of a big bullfrog, he thrust the barbeque spit at it, impaling it. It took us a while to get the hang of it, but once we did we caught several. While we gigged, we talked softly. I had to ask Aaron the question that had been bothering Sara and me since nightfall.
— Who are all those people at the campfire?
— Just folks. Folks that ain’t got a home. Don’t want one neither.
— What do you mean?
— They’re just … well, lost souls. Most of ‘em were let out of the mental institutions after PF Day.
— Why would they just let them out? I mean, they’re crazy, right?
— Well now, we’re all just a little crazy, ain’t we? Take you two. You could be at some nice person’s home with electricity, hangin’ out with your friends an’ all but instead, you decide to hang out here with the crazies.
Aaron started laughing loudly and laughed until he started coughing. When he caught his breath, he continued more seriously.
— Really, though, think about it. What were the authorities supposed to do? They couldn’t leave ‘em all in there to starve to death, to die of thirst or disease. Who was going to be there to take care of ‘em? No, they had no choice but to let ‘em all out. Prisoners too. That’s why the city’s a lot more dangerous now than before.
Sara and I glanced at each other. We knew firsthand how true that last statement was.
After we had caught a couple dozen frogs, we headed back to the fire. Aaron assured us that there were no gangs among the group. We were still apprehensive and stayed back by the trees until we looked everyone over. There were eight men and three women in the group, as far as we could tell. A few of them could have been either gender. They were all dressed pretty raggedy and obviously didn’t fit the gang type, so we cautiously joined them around the fire. Aaron introduced us and the others told us their names.
We cut the fat legs off the frogs, skinned them, and roasted them over the fire. There were enough to share with everyone and the others gratefully devoured their share.
After a while, three men and two women joined the group. These five were obviously not homeless or mentally ill. You could just tell by the way they walked and talked. They were educated; they had a purpose. Aaron introduced them to us as the keepers of the zoo, who lived in the building down the tracks. They looked exhausted and grim, but their eyes lit up a bit when Aaron told them we were interested in the welfare of the zoo and the animals in it. One of the men, Jim, started to explain to us what they’ve been doing to help the animals since PF Day and how they had made the excruciating decisions they had to.
— After PF Day, most of the zoo personnel came to work every day until the gas ran out. Those who had families naturally had to stay home to take care of them. There were eight of us, originally, who were able to stay to take care of the animals. Of course, at first we had no idea how long the power would be out, so we went about as usual, feeding the animals as we had always done. In some ways that was bad, but in other ways good. They were well fed and healthy as we headed into the winter. But we ran out of food to feed many of them halfway through the winter. We knew at that point the power was going to be off a long time.
Jim paused and stared into the fire sadly. A middle-aged woman named Susan took up the account.
— That’s when we had to make some hard decisions. The zoo director and some of the board members were walking to the zoo from their homes about once a week at that time to check up on things. At one point we all decided that we would have to make a plan to keep as many animals alive as possible. First of all, we had to make a priority list of the animals that were most important to be kept alive and the ones most likely to survive.
Another young keeper, Kyle, interrupted softly.
— That was a difficult task.
— Yes, excruciating. But it had to be done. Obviously, the most endangered species had to have a high priority. We unanimously decided that the primates were a top priority because of their intelligence and most are endangered as well. The large carnivores like the polar bears, the big cats, and the wild dogs needed meat and the only way to provide that was for something else to die. I mean, another zoo animal. We couldn’t very well be feeding them beef and pork when people were starving, you know. So the question was, should we kill lesser priority animals to feed higher priority carnivores? It turned out that we didn’t have to because so many animals started dying quickly; so many we had too much m
eat to feed the carnivores at first. Luckily, the meat kept in the winter. By spring, though, we were running low on usable meat. Especially when the weather warmed up and the dead animals started rotting.
Some of the mentally ill people around the fire began to look uneasy. A few of them got up and retreated into the woods, shaking their heads and muttering softly to themselves. They vanished as quickly as they had appeared earlier, reinforcing my impression of zombies.
Jim spoke again.
— The penguins posed a particularly difficult problem. Many of them were endangered and a high priority for us to try to save, but feeding them and controlling the water temperature was impossible. You see, before PF Day the zoo brought in a truckload of fresh fish and seafood from the coasts every month to feed them. They don’t eat anything else. The warm-water penguins couldn’t recover from the cold temperatures either. Despite our best efforts, we lost all but two penguins last winter.
Now Kyle entered the conversation.
— We had already stored enough hay for the winter to keep most of the herbivores alive. We only lost one of the elephants and a few of the African plains herbivores. We suspect that a few of them were poached, but not as many as we thought would be.
Sara and I glanced guiltily at each other. Even though we hadn’t poached any of the animals, we had thought about it and now, after witnessing their terrible plight, we couldn’t even imagine killing the ones who had managed to survive thus far.
— We lost quite a few of the kangaroos, though. We’re hoping that things will begin to get better soon, now that the electricity is back on. We won’t give up on them, no matter what happens.
Later that night, while Sara and I laid on our beds in the freight car, we talked about how terrible it must have been to make the decisions of which animals to save. Sara looked intensely at me and said,
— You see, Ben; sometimes people have to make decisions they don’t want to. What you think is a choice that somebody made willingly may have been just the best one of a bunch of terrible choices.
Time Lost: Teenage Survivalist II Page 9