A Pandemic, Part 4 of 7

13 Sept 2008.
Yesterday around mid-day, I heard a commotion behind the house, outside my yard. I looked and 3 young guys had a girl pinned to the ground on the small hill about 15 yards away from my back fence. It looked like they were trying to rape her and she was screaming “no” and “stop” over and over. I haven’t mentioned the machetes I have before now. I went in quietly and took one up in my left hand and went back outside. I have gravel around the base of my AC condenser, so I grabbed a handful of the in my right hand. I went to the gate and opened it.

The 3 kids were oblivious to the fact that I was there. I stepped out of the gate and threw the gravel at them as hard as I could. The two standing up turned to see me and started to say something until I raised the machete menacingly. The both took a step back and the guy on top of the girl stood up and back up too. I took a step forward and growled at them to get out of here, raising my voice as I spoke. They ran.

I looked at the girl who was topless and her jeans/panties down half way to her knees. I didn’t recognize her. She stood and covered her breasts while trying to pull up her panties and jeans. I took off my shirt and tossed it to the girl, who was crying. I asked if she had a home or somewhere to stay and she mumbled yes. I told her to go home and stay inside, then went in myself. I looked back and she was heading in the same direction the boys went.

The power came back on last night; it scared the crap out of me when the lights and radio in the room came on. I quickly shut them off and then went around the house killing the other lights, except the motion sensor controlled flood lights on the back of the house. I want to stay as dark and quiet as possible. I put the scanner on charge.

Since I was awake, I scanned the radio stations quietly and quickly, AM and FM. The local news radio station was down. I just got static up and down except a few very crackly civil defense recorded transmissions. I speculated those might be from the local National Guard posts, just a guess. I switched on the scanner and was not getting much on the police freqs and nothing on emergency. I did hear on the NOAA channel that hurricane Michael had skirted the NC Outer Banks and was heading due north. It already devastated the Bahamas. On the civilian freqs, it was show time. Every nut job out there was spewing about recent events and bellowing doom and gloom, some preachers out there too. I wish they would pass on some damn news and not preach.

In the morning it was real quiet, so I went out to the field. I could see there was a burnt body in the car that crashed into the tree; the driver didn’t make it out. I didn’t see another body in there, so I don’t know why those guys were shouting two names after the crash.

I was feeling really run down today and realized we had been stuck in the house now for almost two weeks. I decided my son and I would both start some regular exercise. We did the stairs (literally walking up and down the stairs) for 15 minutes, then light weights until we were too tired. I decided we should do this twice a day, to the best of our abilities. Then I started thinking about what else we should be doing daily.

I hadn’t started the car in forever, so I had my son stand watch on the front porch and I went out and ran it for 10 minutes (I don’t have a garage). I was afraid it wasn’t going to start, it took a few tries, but it is a fairly new car and did. That body bag was still there by the curb across the street, propped up and looking back at me in the side mirror.

That night, I was right in the middle of cooking some spaghetti for dinner when the power came on again. I had replaced my electric oven with a gas one a few years ago (after a hurricane knocked out power for 3 days), so I didn’t need it to finish dinner. We played cards and Scrabble, anything to break the boy away from the Gameboy for a while; he is using up all the batteries. He is doing ok on the homework, but the Geometry escapes me! I never took it in high school.

The power went out again after a few hours.

15 Sept 2008.
Yesterday was a nightmare. My concerns over the sliding glass door came true. Around 7PM my son called me because there were people IN the back yard. The curtain was pulled almost shut, so we could see out and they couldn’t see in, since it was still pretty bright outside. My son and I each took up a machete. I hadn’t heard any other break-ins since that first attack, but the neighbors might have had their doors sitting open for all I know.

There were two men, moving slowly towards the house. They looked like hell, filthy and maniacal. There was no way they were getting into my house, sick or not. I moved into the kitchen staying low and once I was near the window in there, I yelled at them to get the hell out and smacked the machete really hard on the window, harder than I wanted to, because I cracked the glass. The men were surprised and backed up a bit. The sound caught the attention of my old deaf dogs too, who moseyed into the dining room to see what’s up. I went to the door and pulled the curtain back and the dogs went crazy once they saw the strangers outside. They scare me when they get like that. It was enough to get the men to backup to the far side of the yard while they rethought their intentions.

I ran upstairs and opened the window in the spare room and hurled several heavy tin toys at the men, yelling at the same time that “we” (important that they think we have more people in here) were going to let the dogs loose now, pretending like I was talking to someone else inside too. The guys fled, one paused and displayed a gun for me, but never pointed it at me. Probably a toy.

A minute later, as I was coming back to the main level and I could see one of them outside through the curtain opening. As I entered the dining room, he threw a large rock at the sliding glass door, right in front of me, shattering it. The rock skidded across the floor and landed at my feet. The dogs tried to get out and one cut a paw in the process, this is all I need right now. I went outside after some time passed and I had my son posted upstairs to stand watch. I closed the gate and DUH, locked the padlock. One dog was gone, I guess chasing the men? I didn’t hear barking.

When I came in my son was on his way downstairs to check the pooch, he had seen the blood. We cleaned the cut and put gauze on it and taped it up tight (dogs hate Hydrogen Peroxide BTW). Seconds later the dog was trying to take off the bandages. My kid sat and pet the wounded dog to keep him occupied for over an hour.

Now I have to fix the broken door. I don’t have any plywood, but a bunch of 2x4s and some 2x6 planks leftover from a porch job I helped a neighbor with last year. My son and I cleaned up the glass (saved all the broken bits in a cardboard box) and took the trim off around the broken door, which I took upstairs to be used as spears if we get more “visitors”. I shored up the opening in the door and slept very near it that night.

The next morning I got the longest screws I had and made a lattice with the lumber, only over the broken part of the door. I went outside and did the same out there over the whole of the door. I used the leftovers to shore up the other 3 main floor windows on the inside, removing the trim of each one before hand. I was exhausted afterward and collapsed.