“It may have broken his ribs,” Ellis said, the words coming out before he had fully considered their impact. “I don’t mean to bum you out, but they’re really strong. The snakes, I mean.”
“All his ribs?” Alice asked, her voice turning into a cry.
“No, probably not,” Ellis said hurriedly. “Probably not all his ribs. But maybe one or two, or maybe they’re just bruised. It’s hard to say. He’ll probably get better soon.”
Ellis looked over at G-Mom. She pointed to a chair by the table. Ellis nodded and sat down. Ellis caught Day’s eye and told him, with a nod, to join him. But Day made an excuse.
“I left some food out on the counter,” he said, “up in our apartment. Kuru, will you come with me? We can check the water, too.”
“Okay.”
“Ellis knows the snakes better than anyone,” Day said.
“Then we’re going to have a little conversation,” G-Mom said. “Sit up straight and talk to me.”
Ellis watched Kuru and Day duck out and head for the third floor. He hated them a little in that moment, because they were free and he wasn’t. He took a deep breath and told G-Mom what he knew about the snakes once she settled down across from him at the table. She asked a lot of questions. Alice, petting Zebby, asked a couple, too. Mostly they wanted to know how many there were, what they ate, who was behind it all. Ellis told them what he knew, shielding them from the gorier details. Like the rabbit feedings. Like the rats.
“That boy Teddy sold these snakes?” G-Mom asked when Ellis concluded his retelling of the events. “Who would buy such a thing?”
“Some people like them, G-Mom. Some people think they’re really cool. You know how kids buy pit bulls and turn them nasty? Same idea.”
“You mean those ugly dogs you see around?”
Ellis nodded. He actually liked pit bulls, but not when they were trained to be vicious. Alice came over and sat down with him. Ellis ate one of the last doughnuts. He felt empty inside. Not hungry, really, just empty. He asked if he could hold the baby. He liked holding Juan. It made him feel less empty.
“How do we keep them out?” Alice asked. “The snakes, I mean.”
“Keep the door closed. We should all be alert, and we should keep the baby with us at all times. We should never put him down. Not until this is over. And we should travel in pairs at least.”
“But we still don’t know how many might be creeping around this building, do we?” G-Mom asked.
Ellis bounced the baby a little. He shook his head. “Not exactly. I think six or so.”
“I’ve lived too long,” G-Mom said, shaking her head. “I really mean it.”
“Mostly the snakes just lay there and don’t do much of anything,” Ellis said, feeling a need to defend them a little. “They bask in the heat lamp and eat once a week or so. They’re nice pets. All of them are domestic snakes except one. Only one was wild-captured.”
“What’s that mean?” Alice asked.
Ellis realized he had gone too far, but he decided to make a clean break of it.
“Domestic snakes are ones that are raised in captivity. They’re easier to handle because they don’t know anything else. Those are the kinds you should keep as pets.”
“And wild-captured?” Alice asked. “They were in the wild?”
“Yes, and then someone captured them. They’re more dangerous to keep as pets.”
“Were there any of those?” G-Mom asked.
“One,” Ellis said, blowing gently on Juan’s soft hair. “Big Monte.”
Alice walked her fingers slowly down Zebby’s rib cage. She was afraid Ellis had been correct: Some of Zebby’s ribs were broken. He still hadn’t climbed to his feet, and he still seemed to have trouble breathing. The bite mark on his left shoulder was ugly and raw. The boa had gouged a dark red wound in his shoulder. She gently tickled his ear and whispered that she loved him.
It was noon and still raining. The apartment had become quiet. G-Mom dozed in the recliner. Carmen had been able to sit up enough to have the baby propped in her arms. Now they both slept, Carmen snoring lightly now and then, while the other three, Kuru, Ellis, and Day, stayed up on the roof, trying their best to get someone’s attention.
Her job, at least as it was outlined in a brief meeting when Kuru and Day had returned with an armful of mismatched groceries, was to organize their supplies. She hadn’t gotten very far. Or rather, there wasn’t very far to get. They only had a day’s, maybe two days,’ supply. After that it was anyone’s guess what they would eat. At least, she thought, they had plenty of water. They couldn’t drink the floodwater — it was filled with gasoline and sewage — but the system they had organized for gathering rain worked effectively.
Shelter.
Check, she told herself.
Water, check. Food, check — for now.
She leaned over and kissed Zebby’s bristly cheek. Zebby grunted softly.
After a while she stood and did the rounds. That’s what they called snake patrol. Every twenty minutes or so someone was designated to go around the apartment and check to make sure no snake had wiggled its way inside. G-Mom had insisted on it. The door was shut. The windows, except the ones with a sheer drop-off on the side of the building, were also shut. Alice doubted a snake could get inside now, but it was worth checking anyway. She still could not believe the horror of seeing the snake wound around Zebby. The sheer smoothness of the attack, the efficiency, made her feel creepy inside her skin.
G-Mom came awake, looked right at her, then went back to sleep. Alice smiled. G-Mom was quite a character. Moving around the apartment, Alice checked on Carmen and the baby. Carmen opened her eyes.
“How are you feeling?” Alice asked.
“Better,” Carmen said. “I’m actually hungry for the first time in a long while.”
“I’ll get you something. How’s your neck?”
“Still hurts, but it’s okay. How’s Zebby?”
“I think some of his ribs are broken.”
“Poor thing.”
“I have half a doughnut here and some cheese and ham slices. Does any of that sound good?”
“A piece of doughnut is fine.”
“It’s probably stale,” Alice said, carrying it over to Carmen. “But they still taste pretty good.”
Carmen took the doughnut piece. Alice sat down at the far end of the couch.
“I’m Alice, by the way,” she said. “We haven’t really met officially.”
“I’m Carmen.”
“You fell and hurt your neck?”
Carmen nodded. She shot her hand to her neck as soon as she did that.
“It feels like it was wrenched, but it’s getting better, I think. It just needed rest.”
“Where’s your mom?”
“She was working when the flood came on. And we haven’t been able to make any contact.”
“Everything is shut down,” Alice agreed. “You’d think someone would come by.”
“They will eventually, I guess. The water can’t stay at this level forever.”
“We should be okay. We have water. That’s the main thing.”
“We can always eat the snakes,” Carmen said, smiling.
She looked down at baby Juan. He had started to wake. His hands moved in little orbits, but his eyes hadn’t yet opened. She let him grab her index finger with his tiny hand. That seemed to quiet him.
“They should report back soon,” Alice said, pointing her chin at the roof.
“It’s going to be dark again before we know it. We don’t have a flashlight? I can’t believe we can’t find one in this entire building.”
“We have the flashlight, but not the batteries.”
“That’s really lame. You know what I keep thinking? I keep wondering if maybe this isn’t the end of the world, you know? It could be. Maybe the whole world is ending and we don’t know it.”
“Don’t go freaky on me,” Alice said. “It’s just a levee breaking.”
&nbs
p; “I know. But I’ve been thinking about it. How would you know if the world had ended? What if that’s the reason we haven’t seen any boats or helicopters?”
Alice looked at Carmen, trying to read her.
“I think the safer assumption to make is that we’re just trapped here a little while.”
“I know, I know,” Carmen said. “My mother always says I let my imagination run away with me. Don’t think I’m nutty.”
“I don’t.”
Carmen kissed the baby’s head.
“I’m sorry about Zebby,” she said.
“Me, too.”
Then Alice heard the others coming down from the roof. They came quickly, but not in the panicked run she had heard before. They clomped down the stairs and then swung into the apartment, closing the door behind them. They carried another spaghetti pot full of water.
“We saw a helicopter,” Kuru said. “It buzzed by, but it wasn’t that close. It looked like a news copter.”
“Where are the police?” Carmen asked. “It’s weird we haven’t seen the police at all.”
“They may be around. We just haven’t seen them,” Day said. “I think we should try to get to the ground level to see if anything’s moving down there.”
“Go to the first floor?” Alice asked.
“Just to survey the surroundings,” Day said. “Just to make sure things haven’t changed and we don’t know about it. There could be boats out on the street, and we wouldn’t necessarily know it. The boats could stay right next to the buildings and maybe we couldn’t see them from the roof.”
“It’s getting dark,” Ellis said. “We should do it tomorrow morning if nothing has changed.”
“Is it still raining?” Carmen asked.
“It’s raining harder than ever,” Kuru reported. “It’s crazy.”
“How’s Zebby doing?” Ellis asked, kneeling next to the pig. “How you doing, boy?”
“Not great,” Alice said. “He’s not acting like himself.”
“Poor little pork chop,” Ellis said, petting him.
Then the building gave an enormous grinding sound. Alice held her breath. It was the loudest sound so far. The plate of remaining doughnuts slid slowly across the table. Something smashed in the kitchen. Zebby made an alarmed squeal, and G-Mom made a short, gargled sound and then sat forward.
No one moved. Alice looked around the small circle of people. The building was going over. Maybe not this minute, and maybe not in the next day or two, but the water had chopped away at the foundation and it was no longer solid. The building listed slightly to the left, its top leaning against the French Shoe Polish building. If you put a marble on the floor, she realized, it would have rolled at a good pace right across the apartment.
“We’ve got to get out of this building,” Kuru said, her facial expression paused while she listened. “It’s going to slide right down.”
“In the morning we should go,” Day said. “We should make a run for it.”
“Run where?” Ellis asked. “Run how?”
No one answered. Alice stood and went to Zebby. She wasn’t going to leave Zebby no matter what. No one could make her do that.
“Chess is the only game where there’s no luck involved,” Ellis said, his eyes fixed on the chessboard. “It’s all skill. You can’t blame anything if you lose. Win or lose, it’s all on you.”
“What about checkers?” Kuru asked.
“Checkers, too. Chinese or regular. All skill. Most games have luck. You introduce a ball, it’s luck. You introduce teammates, passing, anything at all, and luck enters into it. Not chess, though. Chess is pure.”
Day moved his bishop diagonally across the board. Ellis had seen it coming and countered it by sliding a pawn up to chase the bishop away. Piece of cake, he thought.
“What about boxing or something like that?” Alice asked.
She sat next to Kuru. They all sat at the table, the candlelight illuminating a tiny circle in the darkness. No one moved away casually. Not with the snakes around, Ellis thought. Not with Big Monte patrolling the hallways.
“Someone can trip,” he said. “Someone can break a thumb on a perfectly solid punch, then they can no longer fight. All sorts of things can happen. It’s random. I’m telling you, chess is the ultimate test of skills.”
Day kept advancing his knight on the other side of the bishop. Day was too aggressive most of the time, Ellis knew. Day wanted a quick kill, which was not a good tactical approach in chess. Chess required patience. If you forced things, they usually failed to work out. If you waited, on the other hand, you could usually spot a deficiency in your opponent’s game. That’s how Ellis played. He was a counterpuncher.
“If we started early in the morning and waded …” Carmen said from the couch.
“We can’t wade,” Alice said. “Not with G-Mom and the baby.”
“Maybe not all of us then,” Carmen said. “Maybe we send out a rescue party.”
Ellis thought that was a bad idea, but he didn’t say anything. He castled to the right, moving his king two spaces and his rook to the other side. That was something Day hated to do. Day considered it a waste of a move, but Ellis knew better. You had to castle, the earlier the better. That was a cautious approach, but the smart one, too.
“I think they know where we are,” Kuru said. “The authorities do, I mean. But maybe they can’t get to us. Or maybe there are other people in worse shape.”
“Maybe they’ve just forgotten us,” Day said. “Maybe this part of town isn’t a top priority.”
“You mean they know we’re here, but don’t care?” Alice asked.
Day shrugged. He moved his bishop again. Ellis easily fended it off with a pawn. Day ignored the power of pawns. Pawns ruled, Ellis thought. They moved forward step by step, narrowing the noose with each push forward. People liked to concentrate on the big pieces, but the pawns won the day most times.
“If we walked away from the river, eventually we’d reach dry ground,” Kuru said. “That just stands to reason, doesn’t it?”
“But it’s dangerous walking in the water,” Alice said. “There could be all kinds of stuff in the water. I’m not talking about the snakes now, I’m talking about broken glass, or rusty metal. You don’t know what you’d be getting into.”
“We can’t stay here,” Kuru said. “The building is going to go over.”
“Don’t say that,” G-Mom said, the baby on her lap. “Don’t even give those words air.”
“G-Mom, it’s true,” Kuru said. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but it’s true. The foundation is undermined.”
“If we send out a party to look for help,” Ellis said, “that leaves us short-handed here. If anything happens with a snake, or anything else, then we’re in trouble.”
That was chess, Ellis realized. You made your moves, calculated your risks, then made cautious advances. People liked to overlook the obvious, pretend it didn’t matter, but Ellis knew better. You had to proceed in an intelligent way. If you didn’t, you were sure to lose.
“I say we make an assessment in the morning,” Ellis said. “Maybe it will stop raining and maybe the water will start going down. We can’t know what the conditions will be like twelve hours from now. The main thing is to get through the night safely.”
“What about the building?” Kuru asked.
“We’ll have to trust that it will hold up. We don’t have anywhere to go. There’s nothing else we can do right now.”
No one said anything after that. Kuru took the baby from G-Mom and sat him on the edge of the table. He looked like a chubby little Buddha sitting there, Ellis thought. He reached over and ran his knuckle gently against the baby’s cheek. He loved how soft a baby’s skin could be. He loved that a lot.
SURVIVAL TIP #4
* * *
As a rule of thumb, be wary of changing location in a survival situation. Sometimes it may be the best course of action to seek new ground, but often it is recommended that t
he survivalist remain where she or he is until the authorities can locate her or him. During a crisis in an urban or semi-urban environment especially, the authorities are likely to be well aware of the stranded party’s circumstances and will typically have plans in place to effect a rescue. By moving, the survivalist only makes the rescue effort more complicated. In most cases, in other words, stay with the capsized boat, the stalled vehicle, the remote cabin — unless it is absolutely necessary to move. Be patient and make yourself visible to potential search parties.
Day stepped into the water and held his breath at the shock of cold. The water came up to his chest. It felt strange to be standing in the bakery with the water pressing against him. He looked at Kuru and Ellis. They still remained on the stairs looking down like kids on Christmas morning gazing at a Christmas tree. It might almost have been funny under different circumstances, he thought.
“How is it?” Kuru asked.
“Cold,” Day said.
“Can you make it over to the door?” Ellis asked.
“Not sure yet. You can’t see your feet, so it’s hard to know where you’re stepping,” Day said, his hands held up near his chin like squirrel paws as he slowly slid his right foot forward. “You guys can hop in anytime you like.”
“Let’s see how you do making it to the door,” Ellis said. “Then we’ll see what’s what.”
“You two are a great help,” Day said, still probing with his feet. “I think the water’s moved things around.”
“Probably did,” Kuru agreed. “The door swings in, not out. You might get a rush of water when you open it, so be ready. And I put some flour bags against the door, so you might have to push them aside.”
“It’s still raining,” Ellis said. “Hard to believe, but it is. Not as bad, though.”
It had looked sunnier earlier when they had decided to test the waters, so to speak. That’s what Day remembered. But sitting in an apartment on the second floor surrounded by a bunch of people was different from wading chest-deep across a flooded bakery. He didn’t even want to think of Big Monte or the other snakes. Boas and pythons did just fine in water, he knew. They often hunted in water, so it did not make him happy to be wading through the jungle juice in the bakery. Besides, the water smelled funky and felt slimy. Nothing about the situation was particularly pleasant. He could only imagine what the street would be like.
Flood Page 8