“Could be dangerous,” I said warily.
“I don’t see a way around it,” he shrugged.
I nodded, “Yeah…guess you’re right.”
I took one last look at a map of downtown Miami that we’d found inside one of the cars.
“You know where we’re going?” Dad asked.
“I think so,” I said. “Myron, the trader back in Hialeah, said that most of the trading downtown took place on the bay front at a spot called Bayside Marketplace. It’s about five or six miles from here. We should be able to make it there by early afternoon and hopefully get back by nightfall.
“Be a long day…especially carrying the stuff we have to trade,” Dad said. “But it’s worth it,” he smiled at me.
“Damn straight it is,” I replied.
“I’ll keep the map handy just in case,” said Dad.
“No faith in your son?” I grinned at him.
“Lots of faith in you…little remaining faith in humanity,” he frowned sadly. “Could be roadblocks, armed gangs…you name it.”
But there weren’t. Things seemed to have calmed dramatically since our arrival to the Miami area. We actually found the downtown area fairly quiet, arriving just after two in the afternoon as we lugged our bags of supplies and an assault rifle each along with us. In the old days, I would have considered it a tough hike, but compared to our trek to get to Miami, it seemed like a stroll in the park.
As we neared the marketplace, we realized that this particular portion of town was bustling with activity. Area business people had rows of stands set up with brightly painted signs. Others had just pulled in pickups, their beds loaded with supplies, or backed in delivery trucks with the rear doors open to reveal their goods.
I noticed several armed men standing guard at the market’s entrance, and it appeared that most of the traders, as well as the shoppers, carried some sort of firearm. But other than that, everything appeared natural, as though rifles and side arms were now the cell phones and sunglasses of the day.
“What’s the plan?” asked Dad.
“Let’s just walk a little bit,” I said. “We can watch, listen, and see how this all works. It’s probably a lot like back in Hialeah, but I don’t want to start off by stepping on anyone’s toes.”
We spent about 15 minutes wandering, inspecting the wares of different merchants. We stopped and watched a few transactions take place from afar so that we knew what to do when the time came.
As we stood watching a middle-aged woman trade a basket of vegetables for a pair of eyeglasses, a voice from behind us said, “Welcome to downtown Miami! Glad to see you made it!”
I turned to see the Myron, the same trader from the Westland Mall market back in Hialeah, smiling at me from a nearby stand.
Dad and I walked over and shook hands. “Didn’t expect to see you here,” I said, smiling at him.
“I get around,” Myron laughed jovially. “Got to go where the business is, and these days, the business is downtown.”
“Well, it’s good to see you,” I said. “Hey, we’re still in the market for insulin if you’ve come across any.”
“Not me,” he said. “But I know a guy here who might have some. Won’t come cheap though.”
“Didn’t figure it would,” I said. “Just hope it’s not too expensive. We’re running low on food and water too.”
“Well, I can take care of that side of your shopping list,” Myron said. “I see you have stuff to trade.”
“Yeah,” I nodded, letting my bag of wares sag to the ground beside me. Dad followed suit.
“What you got?”
“All sorts of stuff. You looking for anything in particular?”
“I’ll tell ya, there’s some stuff I just can’t move, other stuff I have tons of, and some things I can’t find anywhere. It’s really just hit and miss. I’d have to see what you’ve got in order to give you an idea of whether I need any of it.”
“What about the guy with the insulin?” I said. “You know what he’s looking for?”
“I’m not exactly sure, but the word on the street is that pretty soon business is going to be transacted with bullets. They’re supposedly going to be the new currency.
“Bullets?” I said. “Really?”
He nodded. “Looks that way. I’ve heard that the operation running things in town is pushing for bullets to be used like cash. Makes sense if you think about it. They’re long-lasting, everybody needs them, they’re easy to transport, and anybody with any brains carries them these days,” he nodded to all the heavily-armed people around us and then patted his own sidearm that he wore in what looked like a hand-made holster around his waist.
“True,” I tilted my head to the side, considering.
“It’d make my life a hell of a lot easier,” Myron said. “Trying to barter stuff all the time gets old. People come in here with all sorts of useless crap and they just expect you to give them the things they want for it whether you want their shit or not. They come across a truckload of toothpaste or a bunch of winter gloves and expect you to give them good food and water for it or gasoline. It just doesn’t work like that. If I don’t need it, I’m not going to trade for it, plain and simple. Having a standard currency, now that would make things a lot less complicated on my end. Being able to sell stuff for bullets and then take those bullets to one of the warehouses controlled by this operation and buy the stuff I need would make everything simpler and a heck of a lot less time consuming. Like going to Costco in the old days,” he smiled. “Remember that?”
“Yeah…I remember,” I said, thinking back to how easy it all used to be.
“Why don’t you let me take a look at what you got?” Myron said.
He invited us around behind his display area to an empty table he had set up where we laid out all our goods.
He sifted through the stuff, dividing it into three piles. “Good,” he’d nod, shoving items into one pile. “Meh,” he’d say, shoving things into another, and “Junk,” he’d say, pushing other stuff into a third pile.
When he was done, most of the stuff we’d hoped to trade was shoved into the “Meh” and “Junk” piles. It was very disheartening.
He pointed to the junk pile which included things like clothing, knife sets, toothpaste, deodorant, and several fishing poles and associated gear. “You wouldn’t believe how much of this stuff we get and how hard it is to move,” he said.
The “Meh,” pile included things like cigarette lighters, candles, lip balm, several pairs of eyeglasses, some contact solution, and various balms, salves, and ointments.
“We get a lot of this stuff,” Myron nodded at the pile, “but it gets used up pretty quick, so people are always looking for it.”
The “Good,” pile included things like aspirin, batteries, several silver ounce rounds that I still had left, some spare ammo we’d tossed in for guns we no longer had, and two handguns for which we were out of ammo.
“Hey, Craig!” he called to a nearby vendor, “Come take a look at this stuff!”
A burly, sweaty-looking man who appeared to be around 40 years of age and with shoulder-length curly black hair ambled over. He wore blue jeans and a dingy white t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off.
“What can I do for ya?” he mumbled over a mouthful of some sort of sandwich he was chewing. Bits of bread and saliva flew from his mouth as he spoke.
“These men are looking for insulin,” Myron explained. “Think you can help them out? They’re good people.”
Craig eyed us warily, “I might be able to do a little business,” he nodded. “This what they got to trade?” he motioned to our belongings splayed across Myron’s table.
“That’s it,” Myron nodded.
“Not much,” Craig mumbled, spitting more crumbs in the process.
“Some pretty good stuff there,” I interjected.
“You know how valuable insulin is these days?” Craig said, turning to eyeball me. “I’ve got people dying for it…literall
y,” he chuckled.
I found his sense of humor in extremely poor taste and I wanted to kick the crap out of him right then and there considering Claire’s situation, but I kept my cool. I recognized that I needed his product far more than he needed what I had to offer. Therefore, I didn’t respond, not wanting to offend him.
“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll take everything you got, including the rifles and ammo you’re carrying, for half a vial.”
“Half a vial!” I cried. “That’s like two weeks worth!”
“You know how hard it is to find this shit? They ain’t making it anymore,” he finally swallowed his food.
“I know that,” I said as calmly as I could.
“We have some nice stuff here,” Dad interjected.
“Yeah, you and everybody else, buddy,” Craig sneered, gesturing around at the market full of people. “This shit here…” he waved his hand across the table at our array of goods, “…it comes along every day. Nothing special. I’m actually doin’ you a favor really just by offering you any insulin at all for it. If Myron here hadn’t vouched for you, I wouldn’t even be talking to you.”
I stood next to Dad, silent. Half a vial was better than nothing, but it only delayed the inevitable, and not by long.
“Listen, I got other customers to deal with,” said Craig, starting to turn around to leave. “That’s the deal…take it or leave it.”
“Would you at least leave us one of our rifles to get home with?” I asked.
He looked put out by the question, frowning while looking at his watch and huffing, “Since you’re a buddy of Myron’s, I’ll let you keep one.”
We quickly made the exchange, dumping off our two hefty bags of stuff, and one of our assault rifles in exchange for the tiny, half-full glass bottle that I gingerly wrapped in a cloth handkerchief and placed in my front shirt pocket.
“Guess there’s nothing left for me to do,” said Myron. “Should have called him over after I made my sale with you.”
“We’ll be back,” I told Myron. “We’ve got more things we can trade for food.”
He perked up noticeable at this, calling after us as we departed, “Bullets if you’ve got ‘em!”
Dad and I hardly spoke on the long walk home. There wasn’t much to say. Dad knew the situation. I knew the situation. And things looked bleak. If insulin was this hard to come by these days, we’d spend the rest of our lives working day and night just to accumulate enough stuff to keep Claire living day to day. We needed to find a bigger supply; but even if we did, it wasn’t likely that we could afford it. And without such a supply, we’d be stuck here in limbo, unable to move forward with the final segment of our plan.
On the way back home, we passed a burning car on the side of the road. The bodies of two young men lay in the street beside it.
“Guess it isn’t quite Shangri-La just yet,” said Dad.
“Doesn’t look that way,” I agreed. “Wonder if things will ever get back to the way they were?”
“One day…maybe,” Dad said softly, but it didn’t sound as though he held much conviction in what he said.
As we neared the apartment building, I said to Dad, “Let’s not mention how much we had to trade to get this,” I patted the vial in my pocket.
“Okay,” he agreed.
“Let’s just load up the rest of the stuff we have to trade, get the food and water we need from Myron tomorrow, and then we can re-evaluate. At least this buys us a little time to try to figure things out if nothing else.”
Dad remained silent. I knew he was thinking the same thing I was. Sure, getting this insulin buys us a little time…but then what?
* * *
I couldn’t sleep that night after getting back from the market, so I volunteered to take the first segment of the night watch, which Will was only to glad to give me. I was all wound up with worry about my wife. My mind was running rampant with questions regarding how to get more insulin.
I therefore took to wandering from apartment to apartment exploring them again in hopes of finding anything of value that we might have missed during our first searches. I figured I would re-search the apartments we’d already gone through on our floor tonight. I could investigate the ones we’d yet to explore in the morning when I had daylight to assist me.
I’d just reached the end of our hallway where it met with one of the stairwells when I heard voices coming from inside what I had previously assumed to be an empty apartment. It was an apartment I’d searched earlier so I was pretty positive it was abandoned – or at least it had been.
I quietly turned off my flashlight and crept cautiously to the door, trying to make out how many voices there were and what they were saying. The entry door to the apartment was slightly ajar, and I stood outside listening.
I pulled my .44 from my waistband and aimed it out in front of me. I softly pushed the apartment door open with my foot and moved inside. I crept through the darkness of the living room and toward the bedroom where there was the dim glow of a light and the continued talking of what sounded like two people.
I didn’t like it, and I didn’t really want to, but I decided to take a chance. It was time to become the type of person I despised, but at this critical juncture, I felt I had little choice.
CHAPTER 11
It’d been quite some time since Ava had met with Bushy. She’d sent him down from Atlanta nearly two months earlier to gather intelligence and get a few things set up prior to her planned arrival. This was how she’d been so well informed regarding the situation in Miami and able to develop the plan for how she and Jake could gain control over the city relatively quickly. It was also how she’d made contact with the people in control of Little Havana and had gained their complicity in the takeover of the city, thus the reason for their being bypassed during Jake and Ava’s rampage through town.
Bushy had been a prepper-type living outside of Atlanta before the flu hit. Afterward, he’d come to the city to look for supplies and for work, and that’s where he’d met Ava. He had a thick, scruffy beard, thus the nickname, “Bushy.”
Ava had recently sent him a letter to meet her in an abandoned art-deco apartment building in Miami Beach. The structure had been beautiful not long ago, but it was now rapidly succumbing to the ocean elements. Its aging pink-pastel stucco exterior was cracking and had crumbled away in a spots. Many of the windows on the first and second floors had been broken out. Exterior metal elements were starting to decay, and the resulting rusty icicles of brown stain were slowly sliding their way down the building’s walls.
The building itself faced out toward the beach, and it was the type of place Ava had once envisioned herself living as a girl growing up in Miami. It was just another of many dreams she’d never had the chance to realize. Now however, the spot seemed the perfect location for a late-night rendezvous with Bushy, away from Jake’s watchful eye.
Bushy had scouted the building a few days prior and had found it uninhabited. He was now waiting for her in the bedroom of one of the third floor apartments. A small battery-powered lantern cast their only light, but Bushy had to admit, Ava – as always – looked incredible in cloths so constricting they would have suffocated an anaconda.
“So how have things been in Little Havana lately?” Ava asked, getting right down to business after a quick handshake in greeting. “They treating you okay?”
Bushy shrugged, “Yeah, things are good. Been staying busy. They’ve got me running supplies between their warehouses and some of the traders in the area markets. Not a bad gig; and they seem like decent enough individuals. Don’t fit in too well though being about the only white boy. But they don’t give a shit, and they don’t give me any trouble.”
“Good,” Ava nodded. “I’m going to have to steal you away for a few days though.”
“Yeah?” Bushy said in the dimly-lit bedroom. “Why’s that?”
“I need you to make a run back up north.”
“How far up north?” Bushy eyed he
r warily. He’d settled into a groove down here and was finding that he actually kind of liked Miami. The thought of having to leave didn’t really appeal to him, but if that’s what Ava wanted, that’s what he’d do. He hadn’t been with Ava long, but he knew her well enough to understand that she wasn’t one to be messed with.
“South of Jacksonville,” she handed him an envelope and then several photographs. “Directions are taped to the back of the envelope. I need you to show these pictures around, see if you get any reaction from anybody when they see them.”
Bushy picked up the lantern and held it up to illuminate the photos, taking a moment to inspect them more closely.
“Jesus,” was all he said.
“Just be careful,” Ava said. “You find the people that these pictures mean something to and they might not be too happy to see you.”
“I can imagine,” Bushy huffed, nodding as he stared at the photos.
“If you find them, you give them that envelope.”
“Okay,” he nodded, sliding the envelope and pictures inside his back pocket. “Anything else?”
“Not right now,” Ava said. “I need this done quick.”
“How quick?” Bushy asked.
“You’ve got three days.”
Bushy nodded that he understood. “Got it,” he said. “So you…”
He was stopped by a noise behind them near the bedroom door.
“Get down on your knees and put your hands behind your head,” a voice said in the darkness.
Ava didn’t recognize the voice. She guessed that it was probably one of Jake’s new recruits who’d followed her here. She knew that this could be bad, very bad for her plans. It could ruin everything and quite possibly be her death sentence.
* * *
I crept through the apartment toward where I could see a light shining from within the bedroom. There, I edged my way up to the door which was open slightly, just enough to give me a view inside. I stood silently, watching, listening.
It appeared that it was just one man and one woman inside. I wondered if they were looking for a place to bed down for the night, but it didn’t appear they had any supplies with them, and from the words I caught, it sounded more like they were conducting some sort of meeting or business transaction rather than discussing sleeping arrangements or where to find food.
The Systemic Series - Box Set Page 89