A Pandemic, Part 5 of 7

17 Sept 2008.
Yesterday was quiet, still no power and the water pressure has dropped, to little more than a trickle. We filled up every container we could find in the house and put them in a corner in the living room.

I scanned the radio twice on batteries and there’s nothing. I am still very worn out, but managed to put some more screws into the boards over the doors and windows. It will take a sledgehammer to get through these, unless someone tried to burn them. I filled two buckets with water and placed one near the front and the other at the back of the house.

It was mostly quiet overnight, except some distant shouting, right up till dark. I heard people out back, they were trying to be quiet, bet failed miserably. They were trying to get into the backyard through the gate. I went upstairs and sent my son to the front of the house to watch for anything there. I had placed the trim from the doors to throw as spears (not pretty, but it should be shocking). I also had two heavy brass fire hose nozzles’ up there, that I saved from being thrown overboard back when I was in the Navy. I use them as bookends normally. I also had my heavy leather work gloves up there.

I was being quiet as possible and watched as each of the 6 people clumsily jumped the gate, helping each other. I put on the gloves and threw one of the 4 foot lengths like a spear and hit someone, they didn’t go down, just hollered. I grabbed one of the nozzles and threw it as hard as I could at the leading shadow and missed, they were on the porch now and clawing with something at the lattice. I threw the second nozzle and someone went down, fell off the porch unmoving. Someone else went to that person and I sent down another shorter piece of trim, thrown with an end over end spin. They were throwing things back now, so I grabbed some of the trim and headed downstairs. There was a loud crash behind me, I figured they sent one of the nozzles back through the bedroom window.

Once I got downstairs, I could dimly see the outline of the attackers through the gaps in the lattice I had built, just from the starlight. They were screaming threats and trying to get in, one lattice was coming loose. I took a long piece of the trim and laid it between the lattices about bellybutton height and went to the far end. I waited till someone was right over the tip, then pushed hard, fast as I could. There was another scream when it hit, but I was able to pull the trim back in, it was dark on the end, blood. I reset it at the next higher gap in the lattice and waited to see if any of them came close again.

They were throwing anything they could find at me now, but it wasn’t coming through. A few minutes later things quieted down and I went to the window in the kitchen. That had been shattered by something during all this. I could see the shadows going back over the gate. Someone shouted that I was a “dead man”, over and over. It trailed off. I told my son everything was fine, but to stay in the basement for the night. I went upstairs to keep watch as long as I could, I was exhausted.

Looking out the shattered window, I saw a bright star far to the south, which was strange. I then thought it must be a plane, but realized that was wrong too. It was the International Space Station, which I had watched fly over several times before. I hadn’t even considered what their status was up there. Do they have food and air? I started thinking the Soviets could send up an unmanned Soyuz to save them and blacked out.

My son shook me awake in the morning.

19 Sept 2008.
The last two days have quiet. I dragged the body in the back yard to just outside the fence. I noticed another body a few houses away sitting on the ground, but leaning against the fence. I went back into the back yard and reseated the one board that was broken loose during the last attack. That was all I could muster.

The gas was out now, no cooking and the water was totally gone. I took the bottles of water out of the freezers, it was all thawed now and the food still in there was now starting to rot. At first I was going to use the water to refill the toilets so we could flush, but decided to save them for drinking, they should be fine and why waste them? I had saved 4 coffee cans incase we ever had to do the “shelter in place” during a terrorist attack.

We finished the thawed frozen food that didn’t need cooking and closed off the fridge and freezer. Anything left in them would be unusable. I had the emergency stock of canned ravioli and Spagettios that we can eat right out of the can. I had also set aside a pack of paper plates and plastic cutlery (spoons/forks). We wouldn’t be able to run the dishwasher, so the silverware and regular dishes were unusable.

There was a loud knock at the front door around noon today. Some idiot I have never seen before was out walking his dog and stopped by to tell me there was a body behind my house. I told him to get away from my house and to not come back. He started to point to the bodies from out in the field and say something, but I was not listening. I went to the basement and scanned the radio. I thought this guy must have heard something, to be out and about like that. There was nothing new, just the weak Civil Defense broadcasts.

I checked the scanner and found out that Hurricane Michael had driven straight north into Connecticut and Rhode Island. Some Ham radio operators were actually able to pick up the International Space Station’s reports of the visual track of the storm and got the word out the best they could up there. I am sure it’s a nightmare for them. The Ham guys/gals were relaying some useful news, finally. Some of the operators were kids who had taken over in their parent’s place. One that received a lot of note, was an 8 year old kid in Ravine Pennsylvania that called himself “The Tower”, who had taken over his father’s post and managed to relay info from the north east to Ohio, West Virginia and other operators. They passed it on from there. The Tower will be a hero in some circles for years to come.