The first week passed without any significant incidents. People were getting used to living on edge, so fear seemed to dissipate as each day passed safely. I started to see my neighbors a little more each day. Perhaps my optimism was rubbing off on them. Every time I could corner one of them, I pleaded for calm and hope. We’d get answers soon, at least that’s the message I chose to spread.
There were issues developing throughout the city, though. No one can expect ideal conditions without electricity.
Spoiled and rotten food became a big problem, a problem your olfactory sense made you keenly aware needed to be fixed. After three or four days, as people opened their refrigerator doors too often, everything started going bad – milk, eggs, cheese, fruit; fruit seemed to be the worst. The stench was unbelievable. Like most others, I cleaned out my formerly cold items after about five days. It was an offensive task. I bagged my trash and tossed them in my trashcan out front. Problem solved.
Well, not quite.
Within two days, we noticed our trashcans were starting to stink, badly. A foul odor wafted through the neighborhood whether there was a breeze or not. I took my trash and double, then triple, bagged everything. That helped for a while. In the next few days I poured every box of baking soda I had in the trash to slow down the growing stench. This would be a continuing issue.
Next came the war on waste, human waste. I, like everyone else, had made the mistake of using my toilets. Initially I used some extra water to flush the waste down its invisible magical channel. Quickly I determined I needed that extra water. I couldn’t continue to use this dwindling resource for something so basic. I had to come up with a solution, and quick.
My neighbors had the same issue, in spades. Jim and Alexis had it bad. Jim and I had to put on paper masks and emptied his putrid bowl by hand, with a small cottage cheese container. We filled a bucket almost to the rim. Next, we dug a deep hole in the far back end of his lot. We put some sand in the bottom of the hole, along with some rocks. We added the waste carefully, neither of us wanted any of this sludge on us, and put a couple inches of dirt on top of that. Problem solved, for Jim and Alexis.
Ted had already solved this problem at his place. They were using a five-gallon bucket for all human excrement and putting it daily in a similar hole out back. It would be nice if he had shared this with others. Jim and I helped the Johnsons clean out the three toilets in their home. Charlotte has an issue with IBS, and stress made it worse. As expected, they had a huge mess to clean up. We opened every window of their home and emptied two cans of odor killer spray inside. I think we caught that problem just in time.
A third issue was that every trap in every sink in every house was emitting a nasty, foul smell. Flies were even starting to hatch in everyone’s home. I grabbed a gallon of bleach and doused all the traps in my house. Now the house smelled like bleach, and fairly strong bleach. I may have been a little enthusiastic with the caustic chemical. I took my solution to my neighbors; they had the same issue. Well, everyone but Ted. He had again figured out the issue and had solved it, sans helping his nearby, suffering friends.
The flies were also ganging up on the trash outdoors. I couldn’t get near the can without having to slice through thousands of those nasty suckers. I moved the can to the far end of my property, way in the back far away from the house or any entry doors. I helped each remaining neighbor do the same. They were all having the same issue; issues, really. All of us were susceptible to the problems that seemed to be cropping up more and more every day.
Ted told me late in the afternoon that we should ride our bikes up to the main grocery store in town and buy all the baking soda we could find. Actually a darn good idea, from Ted no less. While we were at it, we could swing past City Hall and see if anything new had gone up in the last 48 hours. Before yesterday, I had made it my daily ritual to hike over there and look for news. Each day I returned, disappointed, with nothing to report. The same note was still hanging on the door. The crowds shrank each day. How many families had deserted their homes in the first seven days of this crisis?
What really bothered me was the lack of a police presence, not only in our quaint, now smelly, neighborhood, but all around town. Each day when I walked or biked to City Hall, I always went over and pulled on the front door of the Police Station. Each day I found it locked. Nothing seemed to have changed inside. It all looked the same as day one. Where were our police officers? Maybe they were patrolling the perimeter of town. Maybe they were on foot patrol and they had come through when I wasn’t looking for them. Maybe they were all at home doing the same things I was doing, the same as my neighbors. I just know that the whole town would feel better with some officers in plain sight.
The bike ride to the store took no more than ten minutes. Ted never shut up the entire time. He kept flapping his gums about this and that all the way. He debated – with himself, I was quiet – whether EMP’s or a nuclear blast of some type had struck the world. He hypothesized that all of North America shared the same problem. His reasoning was simple – he hadn’t seen a plane go over in a week. I couldn’t argue with him there. What bothered me most is that Ted felt everyone left in the neighborhood should pack up and take off together as a group.
A number of times, far too many to count, I had implored Ted to stop this talk, especially when others were around. Seven people weren’t going to all decide to leave their homes and hit the roads when nothing, at least nothing further, had happened. It didn’t make sense. Would we run from the idea of bad things coming? That was stupid in my mind. We’d know when times got bad enough to leave. There’d be obvious signs. We hadn’t seen anything since the lights went out to make us believe we were in trouble.
Then we got close to the grocery store. This was trouble.
The mass of humanity assembled outside the bank and the next-door grocery store was staggering. There had to be close to 300 people milling about, perhaps more. With closer inspection, I finally located five of our six policemen. Three were standing in front of the grocery store; one guarded each of the two entry doors to the bank. All were brandishing riot guns it appeared. Each of the five had on a Kevlar vest and helmet, not a good sign.
Up in the front of the crowd, people were angry. Some wanted admittance to the store; others wanted in at the bank. The bank seemed closed, even with its smashed front windows. The store appeared to be open, but no one could get inside. You had to speak to an officer, and they would relay your request. If the store had the item, or items, you desired they would pass it out to the police who would then give it to you, once you handed over the cash. It wasn’t until Ted and I were far enough upfront that I noticed the store windows, approximately 100 linear feet of them, were all smashed as well. The top of each opening had a few small pieces of glass still intact, but that was it. I realized why I hadn’t seen the police.
As I got almost to the front of the group, I heard a middle-aged man arguing with one of the cops. Their discussion was hot, on both ends.
“We need water,” the man shouted at the thirty-something officer. “We need it bad. The store must have something left.” The cop simply shook his head. “Well, what about sports drinks or pop? There must be something in there. If you’d just let us in we could look for ourselves.”
“I already told you, everything you can drink is gone. It’s been gone for days. The water gave out the first day. You’re too late.” The cop had to shout to be heard over the angry crowd up front. “And no one’s getting in. We are not going to have chaos here. So unless there’s something else you need, leave.” The young man in uniform looked angry and tired.
“What about baking soda? Any left?” I shouted past the few people in front of me. The others were seeking basic necessities. The things that had already spoiled, or been sold. The cop called into the store, an older man shouted out “No.”
This wasn’t good. We needed something to help keep the smell down at home. “What about cat litter?” Ted shouted standing next to me. Good think
ing, Ted. The man inside signaled yes. We were in luck.
“Send us out two large bags then… please.” I could still show some manners, even if the assembled mob wasn’t doing the same. We would use the cat litter as it would hide smells just as good as baking soda. Probably do an even better job. I saw two twenty pound bags coming from behind the cops. Good. The store manager whispered in the cop’s ear. I came forward to claim my prize.
“Hundred dollars, cash.”
I stared at the cop, he returned my stare with a stone face. He had to be joking.
“No way, $100? For two bags of cat litter? That’s extortion.”
His facial expression never changed. “Hundred dollars, cash.” He repeated angrier this time. “Or else leave.” Ted shoved five twenty-dollar bills forward. The cop grabbed it and handed it to the manager. He stuffed the loot in his pocket. I could only shake my head at the situation. I thought I’d been ripped off at the convenience store on the first day. This was worse, far worse.
As we strapped the bags to the back of the bikes, Ted gave me a funny look.
Ted finally spoke his mind. “Well, this has been an enlightening little trip.” I, again, could only shake my head. There was nothing more to say. In a week’s time society had crumbled much more than I had ever expected. Our only police were guarding the interests of local big business, as big as our town could support. Local merchants were skewering people with their inflated prices. Something told me these merchants were holding out on a lot of supplies. Something about not letting people in the store made me uneasy. Things were going to get worse. I knew that from the little Ted and I had seen this morning. Just how much worse was the question on my mind. And how soon?
Chapter 8