A Pandemic, Part 6 of 7

21 Sept 2008.
Yesterday, my son and I got back to what I wanted to be a daily routine; exercise, homework, scan stations, check if water or gas is on, police the house. I checked all of the provisions and we easily were covered for 15 more days. It started to rain mid day, so I rigged some funnels and some almost empty water bottles to try to collect some rain water. We did collect an inch or so. Might come in handy.

I saw several people out walking their dogs and meeting each other, talking out in the open. I am still not comfortable enough to be doing that yet. When I start hearing some valid news that it’s safe, then maybe. We are set for a while, so no rush.

One provision I had forgotten to check was cigarettes! My doctor will be elated to know I have quite smoking, not by choice. I started chewing toothpicks though and that seemed to at least satisfy part of the addiction. I have been eyeing the longer butts in the ashtray outside, but I won’t go that low. I bagged them and put that in the trash can.

I know the lack of nicotine was getting to me because I wound up going off on my son about the way he was sitting, hunched over, playing his Gameboy. I yelled at him to sit up straight, for no good reason. I apologized once I realized I was being an ass and told him to ignore me if I do something like that again.

23 Sept 2008.
The body truck came through yesterday! It picked up all of the dead in the neighborhood. I told them about the ones behind my house. They said they couldn’t do anything about them. To bring them up to the curb.

That got me to thinking about the body out back and the fact that I might get into trouble about it. I figured I could easily drag the body out to the field when it got dark, but someone had seen it there by my fence. I decided I would take my lumps for what happened and bagged the body. I put a note in the bag that a group had tried to break into my house and that I defended myself. I put my name and address on it and dragged the bag out front for the next time the truck came.

There was no one around so I walked out to the car that had burned and noticed that besides the charred driver, there was another body in the back seat. It looked like someone young, in their teens.

Today I scanned the radio and the local news radio station was on. They had no commercials and everything seemed very poorly produced, like some interns were doing it on their own. They have been able to setup some satellite phones with the help of DHS, in most major cities. The groups in each are relaying news about each city to the others and also pass out CDC and Federal notices.

News from Atlanta was especially bad. When the police and Georgia National Guard tried to impose the curfew, a few kids were killed in a scuffle (I would not propose it was accidental). Full blown riots erupted and they think now that the crowds that gathered and mingled managed to infect many more people than would have been otherwise. The death rate there was estimated to be around 30%. They were identifying the remains now and moving the bodies into a strip mine outside the city. Over 140,000 had perished.