Unprepared Read online

  “I’m looking forward to being clean again,” Kelly said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Babe. Don’t stress out over the radio. We’ll figure it out.”

  David put down his empty bowl and picked up his cup of coffee. The world might be falling apart outside, but at least they still had coffee. The sound of boiling water began to emanate from the kitchen. Kelly got up and headed in the direction of the sound. Turning off the stove, she took the pot off the stove and poured it into a bucket, half filled with cold water, sitting on the kitchen floor. The result was about 4 gallons of hot water, but not too hot.

  “You want to go first?” she called to David.

  “You go for it,” he replied.

  Ask anyone who’s come back from a camping holiday and they’ll tell you that there’s no better feeling than showering in your own home. Sure, David and Kelly might not have running water anymore, but they could still appreciate the feeling of washing away two days’ worth of grime. Having freshly washed themselves and slipped into clean clothes, they could be forgiven for thinking that things weren’t so bad after all. However, that calm was interrupted by movement on the road outside.

  “Dave,” Kelly called out. “That looks like what’s-his-name from down the road.”

  David walked over to the window and looked out at the street, about forty yards away. Sure enough, one of their neighbors was walking down the street with a bag on his back.

  “Should I talk to him?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. We don’t want anyone to know we’re here, or that we have supplies. But he’s always been friendly. I don’t think he’s a threat, and he might know something.”

  Kelly paused.

  “Alright. Do it. But don’t say too much.”

  In bare feet, David opened the front door and called out to the neighbor, waving. The neighbor stopped and turned, his hand reaching into his waist. The two stood, facing each other, now about fifty yards between them.

  “Are you OK?” David asked, trying to sound reassuring.

  He then decided it was safest to play dumb.

  “We’ve lost our power… is yours working?” he yelled.

  “Nah,” the neighbor responded.

  “Wait a sec. I’ll come to you,” said David, who began walking down the long lawn to the roadside.

  David could see the neighbor’s hand was concealing something under his jacket, so he made sure he kept his hands freely visible, as to show the neighbor that he wasn’t a threat. He approached the man, but stopped at a safe, non-threatening distance.

  “I’ll be brutally honest,” said David, smiling, “I’ve completely forgotten your name. I’m Dave, by the way.”

  The neighbor relaxed a little took his hand out from under his jacket.

  “Hi Dave. I’m Steve. I live down at 1251.”

  “Yeah, I recognized you when you walked past. We’ve got no power or water. Any idea what’s up?”

  “The whole city’s out. It must be a terrorist attack. I just came from trying to get into the mall, but it was a waste of time. The whole thing’s been looted and the city’s under lock down. There’s a few police and army roaming around like lost sheep, trying to maintain order, but they can’t really do anything other than shoot at you. I was stopped and explained that I was going to see a client to give legal advice for when the power comes back on. The cop bought it, but I came straight home. It’s just too dangerous. I don’t recommend going into town. Seriously. Or if you do…”

  Steve lifted up his puffy jacket to reveal a pistol in a holster. David smiled and nodded.

  “That’s about it,” Steve continued. “I can’t really tell you much more… Do, uh… do you have food?”

  “Not really,” David lied. “I reckon we’ve got enough to last this weekend, but we need to get more… Do you have food?”

  “Nah, probably about the same as you.”

  There was no way Steve could know about their stash of food and supplies, and it was essential it stayed that way. Maybe the neighbor was telling the truth? Either way, he was clearly armed and lived only a dozen houses down the street.

  “Are you staying?” David asked.

  Steve paused and stared down the street.

  “I honestly don’t know… The thing is, half the city hasn’t returned yet after evacuating for the hurricane. So there’s probably thousands of desperate, hungry and thirsty people out on the highways, making their way back here. It would be suicide to walk the highways now.”

  Steve had a good point.

  “Are you staying?” He asked David.

  Three gunshots rang out in a nearby street, causing them both to turn their heads in that direction. David thought for a moment, pondering how much information he should give to his neighbor; a potential ally or potential foe. He mixed his answer with sprinklings of truth and lies.

  “Well, we’re in the same boat as you. We don’t have enough food to stay here but we can’t leave either. I guess we’ll wait until Monday or Tuesday, when we’re out of food, and head inland, away from the cities.” He decided to change the subject.

  “Is your family OK?”

  “Yeah, we’re all good. Maureen has the kids thinking it’s some sort of game, like camping at home until the power comes back on.”

  “Alright. Well, if I can help, let me know. I’m sure the power will be back on soon.”

  Steve continued walking down their quiet, suburban street. David knew that they had to get prepping and prepare for the worst: opportunists, looters and desperate, hungry people.

  “I have an idea,” Kelly said. “You stay here and count the food and create a meal plan, I’ll go to the creek and get water. There’s one about a thousand yards from here and getting there is mostly through the woods behind the house. I’ll do it during daylight this one time, counting steps and forming a mental path, so that in the future we can collect water at night without light.”

  David was hesitant as it meant separating. Kelly could see he was uneasy about it, but she tried to reassure him. She was a smart person, and as yesterday proved, not to be trifled with.

  “I reckon it’ll only take about thirty minutes. I’ll show you on the map where I’m going and I’ll be careful.”

  “Alright,” David said. “But be very careful. People are getting scared.”

  “Babe, of course.”

  Kelly looked at the gun, still sitting on the kitchen counter. A chill ran down her spine as the man’s face flashed into her mind, mouth agape, the look of shock on his face as he died from her actions. She shook her head quickly, telling herself that this was no time for what-ifs. She wrapped her hands around the pistol’s grip and placed it in her jacket pocket, walking over to David, who was standing in the living room, looking out the window.

  “I’ll be very careful. Hyper alert. Don’t worry. Go count our supplies, babe. Keep yourself occupied.”

  In the spare room, David took everything out of boxes and put it all into organized groups on the ground. They had twenty 5 lb bags of rice. Twenty of dried beans. Twenty of dried pasta. Twenty of lentils. Dozens of cans of fruit, peas, tomatoes. They had a couple of bottles of sunflower oil. Five bags of flour. Five of sugar and another five bags of ground coffee, plus a box of various instant military meals, known as MREs (Meals Ready-to-Eat). Of course they also had spices and baking supplies in the kitchen too, which they could use to enhance their meals. In terms of food, they had several months’ worth of supplies. David had also stocked up on a few boxes of chlorine tablets to purify water, and a box of butane canisters for their portable cooker. There were miscellaneous items too, which could be used to trade, such as a carton of cigarettes and two bottles of Jim Beam whiskey. The supplies, excluding the MREs, were all rotated regularly, so it was all relatively fresh. For example, when they bought pasta from the store, they put it at the back of the pasta box, and took one from the front. The whiskey and coffee were the most regularly replaced items, as you can no doubt imagin
e. There were other items too, which they bought never expecting to use, such as a gas mask each and a box of disposable hazmat suits and a few rolls of duct tape. There were also five boxes of 9mm ammunition for their pistol, and stored in the carport there was a five gallon container of gasoline. And, of course, they had their shortwave radio, spare cell phone and a Geiger counter, although those items were now as useless as bicycle pedals on a wheelchair.

  David sat down with some sheets of paper and calculated the total quantities of their individual foodstuffs, before creating a meal plan which allowed for variation. Disaster or not, he didn’t want to be eating the same thing day after day.

  For once, things were looking good. He put the pen down and leaned back in his seat, studying the meal plan, before turning to look over their supplies, taking up the entire floor. David allowed himself a brief moment of pride. They were prepared.

  Kelly paused at the edge of the forested area, facing a clearing and a group of houses in front of her. The one good thing about American homes in the suburbs was that they rarely ever had fences. This meant traversing them at night would be silent and quick.

  She memorized the number of steps it had taken to get this far and used the three-minute hourglass egg timer in her hand to estimate how long it had taken at a careful pace. This suburban street appeared to be empty with only two cars visible, but she could hear what sounded like one or two adults shouting in a yard not too far away. The creek was somewhere behind the houses in front of her, beyond the trees. The clearing and houses directly in front presented an increased risk of her being seen, which almost caused her to cancel the water reconnaissance trip and return home empty handed, but she needed to continue, count the steps needed and ensure a safe path for recreating this journey with no visible light.

  She placed her hand next to the gun in her pocket, just in case, and walked out of the protective embrace of the trees, her heart rate increasing. Kelly walked quickly, counting the steps in her mind.

  “Twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-one, thi-”

  “Hey!” a voice called out.

  Kelly stopped dead in her tracks and looked around. A man in a nearby house had spotted her and had his head poking out of his front door, a white Lincoln parked in the driveway. She said nothing, her hand reaching around the grip of the pistol. Neither of them knew what to say, or if either was a threat. Five or six seconds passed.

  “Can you help me?” he asked.

  Was this a trap? “Trust no one,” she thought to herself. Should she run? Before she could do anything, her mouth opened and she called out, “What’s wrong?” followed by a sense of regret.

  “It’s my wife… Can you come here?”

  This didn’t feel right. She thought for a moment. This was why she wanted to avoid human interaction during a crisis. It’s all so full of risk and uncertainty.

  “How about you come here?” she yelled.

  The man paused for a few seconds, his torso hiding behind the door frame.

  “I’m... scared,” he called out.

  “I’m armed,” Kelly said, trying to make her voice sound deeper.

  “OK… I’m not.”

  Was it a trap? Of course he could be lying.

  “Please,” the man continued. “Are you a doctor or anything?”

  “No.”

  “She needs help... Can you come here? I promise I won’t do anything.”

  Kelly asked herself what David would do in this scenario. Even if he was telling the truth, what could she do? She only had basic first aid training from her last job.

  “I’m sorry,” she called back. “I can’t help you.”

  “Please!” called the man. “She’s not responding. Something’s wrong with her.”

  Kelly was in an awkward position, torn between a sense of basic humanity and fear. For better or worse, she allowed her sense of the former to take precedence.

  “Al... alright. But I have a gun.”

  Kelly took the gun out of her pocket and walked through the empty section in front of her, moving closer to the house ahead, full of the unknown.

  “Show yourself. Let’s see your hands,” she said, now approaching the house with the man in the doorway, her gun now in both her hands, aimed in front.

  The man, in his mid forties, edged gingerly into full view and had his hands raised to head height.

  “Please. I haven’t seen anyone all day. My wife is sick. She’s weak. Please, come inside. I don’t have a gun.”

  Was he lying? This was Virginia. He almost certainly had a gun, unless he was one of those anti-gun nuts. Kelly had often joked that they’d be the first to die in a disaster.

  “Just stay where I can see you,” Kelly ordered.

  “OK.”

  Kelly walked slowly up the steps, the man walking backwards into his living room, arms still raised. She poked her head around the door frame and peered inside. There was a woman lying on the sofa.

  “You’re the first person I’ve seen all day,” he said. “She had a fever on Wednesday, that’s why we didn’t evacuate. She wanted to stay.”

  Kelly issued a command she never imagined herself saying.

  “Turn around and place your hands on the wall.”

  The man complied.

  With the gun in her right hand, Kelly slid her left hand across his torso, front and back. She glanced over to the woman on the sofa to ensure it wasn’t a trap but the woman remained unresponsive. She checked his pockets and ran her hand down each leg. Nothing was out of the ordinary.

  “I don’t have gun. I mean, I do, but not here.”

  That was something Kelly could believe.

  “So what’s going on,” she asked, relaxing a little.

  “My wife isn’t responding. She hasn’t been well since Monday. She didn’t want to evacuate and we planned to go to the doctor yesterday but the car won’t start. The phone’s dead and we’ve got no power. She’s been getting worse each day, and now she’s not waking up.

  Kelly moved over to the woman on the sofa and placed the back of her hand on her forehead.

  “She’s burning up.”

  “She started getting a temperature on Tuesday, but our thermometer’s stopped working. I want to take her to a doctor but the car’s dead. I can’t call an ambulance. Do you have a cell phone?”

  “My cell phone’s back at home,” Kelly lied. She didn’t need to burden the guy with the news that it looked like no one in the entire state had a functioning phone.

  “You need to take her to the hospital. She has some sort of infection, by the looks of it. Maybe even severe food poisoning.”

  “Do you have car?” he asked. “I’ll pay you, whatever you want.”

  “Put her in a wheelbarrow or steal a shopping trolley. Just take her to hospital, alright?”

  The man thought for a second.

  “I have a wheelbarrow.”

  “Get it. Now.”

  He walked out the front door and down the steps, around the side of the house. Kelly crouched down and shook the woman lying on the sofa. There was no response, so she leaned in and put her head on her chest. The woman’s breathing was terribly weak and the hospital was almost certainly overwhelmed, if it was even still operating. Kelly felt bad for giving the guy false hope. His wife was not going to live.

  Kelly looked at the photos on the wall above the sofa featuring the man she’d just spoken to and his wife, smiling, standing on some unknown beach. Next to the photos they had large, three-dimensional words adhered to the wall, reading “Live, laugh, love.” Kelly thought that was tacky, but better than the beaten-to-death renditions of “Keep calm and carry on” half the world had fallen in love with. Then she did something she wasn’t proud of but couldn’t stop herself from doing. She allowed her eyes to scan the room for valuables. Or if not valuables, then things she could trade if the need arose. To both her disappointment and relief, there was nothing notewor
thy in the living room. A large stereo and big screen TV, which were both certainly non-functional, took center stage on the opposite wall. She did notice a drinks cabinet, however, which was well stocked with whiskey and other spirits. She turned her head back to the unresponsive woman on the sofa, then back at the booze cabinet, before giving in to her newly found lawlessness, crawling to the cabinet and picking up a small bottle of whiskey, stuffing it down the front of her jacket. The potential looter inside her vanished as quickly as it had appeared upon hearing the footsteps of the man walking up the steps and entering the living room.

  “OK. The wheelbarrow is outside. Can you help me place her in it?”

  Kelly nodded, and grabbed on tightly to the woman’s legs, while her husband grabbed under her arms, lifting her torso. Kelly strained with the weight of this person in her grip. The woman was much heavier than expected, even though she was about the same height and size as herself. It took all their strength to carry her down the steps to the wheelbarrow. With one final heave, they lifted her in, her legs sticking out the back while her head rested on the wheelbarrow’s front lip.

  “Thank you,” panted the man. “God bless you.”

  “Go to the hospital. Right now.” Kelly instructed. “And take your gun.”

  “OK. Thank you,” he repeated, running up the steps and back inside.

  Kelly should have been back by now, David thought, anxiously pacing the living room. Out of instinct, he looked at the analogue clock sitting on the wall, but it was stuck at 2:20 PM. It took him longer than he cared to admit to realize the clock was locked at the time of the EMP attack. It was actually closer 1 PM in reality.

  He continued to pace around the living room, wishing they had one more gun. He knew he couldn’t go out there unarmed. Was Kelly lost? No, that wouldn’t be like her. Was she... dead? David immediately hummed a made-up tune, an involuntary defense mechanism when he had intrusive, uncomfortable thoughts. She had been gone an hour; too long for a walk to the creek and back, even if going slowly. It was undeniable that something had happened to her. If only they had some kind of communication device.