Survivors (16 page)

“I’m not,” she said, “the assholes deserved
to die. But that’s not what I was thinking about. If
there’re four of those guys, then there’re hundreds
of them, and they’re going to come here eventually.
There’re going to take what they want and rape all
the women, and I’m guessing many of us will die in
the process of trying to defend our community.”

I thought about Jessie’s prediction of the
future. From what had happened yesterday, I knew
she was probably right. The question was what to
do about it. “So,” I asked, “what should we do?”

“We need to protect the people at the dairy
farm and at Immokalee, and we need to defend this
community. We need to train our people to use the
weapons we have, and I think we have one other
important thing to do. We need to visit the people
living in Miami and Tampa and discuss this problem with them. We need to band together to prevent these people from destroying our communities.”

“Let’s discuss this at the meeting this
morning. I’d like to hear what the others have to
say.”

Margaret walked into the dining area with a
stack of papers. “Extra, extra, read all about it.
Campus heroes grab the beef.”

She handed me my copy with a smile. Then
she left the dining area looking for more residents.
I looked at the one-page rag sheet. The banner
headline read
Where’s the Beef
. I read the article.
There were many quotes from anonymous sources,
and the description of the gunfight was a bit slanted in favor of the victors, but the rest of the article
correctly described the events of the day. The second article was a copy of Patty’s doctrine and a
brief explanation of the necessity for the position
paper. I brought my copy of the Campus Gazette to
our meeting and decided to tape it to the wall of my
apartment as a constant reminder regarding the
power of the Fourth Estate.

We wrestled with the security problem for
several hours. All of us agreed the community was
at risk, and all of us agreed a reasonable approach
was to teach our residents how to defend themselves. The difference of opinion was really about
the wisdom of making contact with other large
communities. George cautioned that Tampa or Miami might be filled with bad guys just like the ones
we ran into on the road.

Bill finally brought up a key fact. “You
know there’s a big military base outside Tampa,
MacDill Air Force Base. Let’s assume they have a
couple dozen survivors. Some of them must be soldiers. We know nothing about defending our community. They could help us. Maybe we can trade
them military training for food and electricity. I
think those soldiers understand discipline, and
there will be a lower probability of them becoming
bad guys. I think we need to go there first.”

It made sense. “Okay,” I said, “I guess I’ll
talk to Blaine about planning a trip to MacDill.
What’s everyone going to do today?”

We went around the table. Manny started.
“I’m going back to Immokalee with some volunteers. We raided all the hardware stores yesterday
and took all their seeds. Today we’re going to start
planting the vegetables most of the residents said
they like. Some of Bill’s team is coming over to set
up a solar array and get us some power so we can
operate the irrigation systems.”

Jessie was next. “I’m helping Isaac start up
the server and get the phones operational. We’ve
got enough cellphones for everyone.”

“Over in the engineering campus. George’s
people gave us power in the Science Building so we
can get the operating room up and running. We’ll
put the server in a nearby lab. Then in the afternoon, Mary, Chaplain Paul, Phyllis, one of the Fort
Myers Beach people, and I are going to set up the
operating room. The four of us are going to be the
emergency medical team.”

Bill was going to drive up to the dairy farm
to review the progress on the solar field, and
George was going to review our solar field. He said,
“I think we may be getting pretty close to full capacity.”

Bill added, “Greg is reviewing all of the
manufacturing procedures for the photovoltaic
cells. The first step is to use an electric arc furnace
to melt and purify quartz crystals. It’s basically a
material science problem. We’re setting up the
manufacturing site in a chemistry lab in the same
building as the server and operating room. I hope
to have an estimate on when we can expect new
solar cells in a few days, but I’m sure it’s going to
take us at least a couple of months of hard work.”

“First, I’m going to drive home and get some
fresh clothes. I’ve been wearing the same things for
too many days. Then, I’m going to walk around the
campus. I want to check up on the kids on their
first day of school.

My backyard was peaceful, and the grass
had grown beyond the point where it could be cut.
I sat down on the same bench I was sitting at on
the day Jessie found me. I spoke to my wife and
daughter. “I miss both of you so much. I think of
you every day. The world has changed so much in
the last few weeks. All of the survivors in the area
have made a new home at Gulf Coast University.
We’ve had to start from scratch. Every day there’s
a crisis, but we’re all working to get things up and
running. Honey, you’d really like some of the people. It’s too bad you’ll never get to know them.”

I spent an hour just sitting there. I was
thinking of all the wonderful memories: the day
Gloria and I got married, the day Sarah was born,
her first day of school, and a recent Thanksgiving
celebration where I had seen all my relatives for
the last time. I was certain they were all dead now.
I thought about President Roosevelt’s famous saying to deal with anything,
and this too shall pass
.
Somehow I knew it was going to take a long time
for this all to pass. I packed up as much as I could
cram into six suitcases. I could always come back
for more, and then I headed back to the campus.

A woman I had met in Immokalee was
teaching the youngest children in an apartment in
Building J. She was reading them a story. Jack
and Bobby were in the first row and the kids all
seemed to be enjoying the woman’s different voices
as she read about
the little engine that could
. Janet
was in another apartment working with the middle
aged kids. They were going over math, and she was
explaining how to do long division. Jasmine and
Hunter were sitting in the first row. The oldest kids
were in the next apartment and a man, who must
have been in the Cape Coral group, I think his
name was Thomas, was talking about Darwin’s
Theory of Evolution. From Margaret’s spreadsheet,
I think I remembered Thomas was a biologist.

I stood in the back of the apartment just
observing. Our future would be vested in these
kids. How would they fare? Would they be able to
rise to the occasion and take our community to a
new level? I guess we’d have to wait a few years to
find out. I liked the concept of guest lectures from
our resident experts. I was certain each teacher
would instill a love for their area of expertise.

I walked over to the Science Building and
found Isaac and Jessie working in an engineering
lab. They had a computer hooked up to the Verizon
server and were reviewing standard operating procedures in an attempt to activate one of the cellphones. They noticed my arrival, smiled, and then
got back to work.

Jessie used a USB connector to hook a
cellphone up to the computer. The computer
screen asked for the serial number of the phone.
Jessie read off the numbers, and Isaac typed it in.
Then the screen asked for the owner’s name and
address. Jessie typed in her name and new address and then hit enter. The server asked for billing information, and Jessie typed in her address
again. Jessie said cross your fingers as she pressed
the enter key.

The computer talked to the server and the
server answered with a screen showing the activation was complete. Isaac then turned on his Verizon cellphone and tried to call Jessie. Her phone
rang. She answered it and said, “Mister Watson
come here; I want to see you.” These were the
words Alexander Graham Bell used during the first
phone call ever made. Isaac and I laughed at her
joke, and then Jessie gave him a high-five.

Jessie stood up. Let’s get some lunch; we’ve
earned it. Isaac, after lunch, could you get the resident list from Margaret and start activating all the
phones. I’ll get someone to help out. Let’s pass out
the cellphones tonight at dinner.”

“Isaac said, “I’ll do that, and thanks for
helping out Jessie. I couldn’t have done it without
you.”

The three of us walked over to the large tent
now considered the communal dining area and approached the buffet table at the front. Beth, who
was overseeing the servings whispered, “We’ve got
a surprise for dinner.”

The last words were slurred. She leaned
against the table for support and then collapsed
onto the ground. She was conscious, but she was
having trouble speaking. Mary, who was having
lunch with Debbie, ran over and asked us what
happened. I said, “She was talking to us; then she
slurred her words and lost her balance. She fell to
the ground before I could catch her. Mary bent
down next to Beth and said, “Beth, can you hear
me?”

Beth opened her eyes. She looked disoriented and didn’t understand what Mary had asked.
“What do you mean?” she said.

Mary turned to us. “She’s had a stroke. We
need to give her Streptokinase, a clot-dissolving
drug, immediately. Bring her to the operating room
as quick as you can.”

Mary ran to her car and drove off to the
Science Building. There was no stretcher, so four
of us did the best we could carrying Beth to the
nearest U-Haul truck. We lay her carefully in the
back of the truck. Jessie held Beth’s head in her
lap and three others piled into the front seat. Luckily everyone was leaving the keys to the U-Haul
trucks in the vehicles so anyone who wanted to
borrow them could.

I raced to the Science Building and hoped
we weren’t too late to save this wonderful woman’s
life. By the time we carried Beth into the operating
room, Mary had found a vial of the drug and was
preparing an I.V. We placed Beth on the operating
table, and Mary immediately started an I.V. catheter. She added the drug into the I.V. line and started the drip.

Mary turned to Jessie, “Jessie, try to figure
out how to get the blood analyzing equipment up
and running. I want to run a Complete Blood
Count and a Total Blood Chemistry; the blood
chemistry is higher priority. Also run a coagulation
test; we’re going to need a prothrombin clotting
time.

Paul the chaplain showed up and immediately asked how he could help. Mary said, “Paul,
look up Streptokinase in the drug reference book
and calculate the correct dose for Mary. Assume
she’s about 150 pounds. It’s the thick blue book on
the bookshelf.”

Mary took Beth’s vital signs. Her blood
pressure was 140 over 86 and her pulse rate and
temperature were normal. Paul found the information on Streptokinase and read the dosage information. “She should get 250,000 I.U. as a loading dose and then 100,000 I.U. per hour.”

Mary took out another vial of the drug and
reconstituted the white powder with saline. She
shook it until all of the powder was dissolved. She
then used a syringe to inject the contents into the
I.V. bag. Then she adjusted the drip rate on the
I.V. pump.

Meanwhile, Jessie had turned on three
blood analyzing machines on a back counter of the
operating room. The machines began to automatically boot up and three minutes later ready messages began coming up on the systems’ computer
screens.

Mary found some blood collection tubes
and drew samples of blood, each in a different colored blood collection tube. She handed them to
Jessie. “The red capped tube is for the Complete
Blood Count and the other two go into the two
sample inputs with the same yellow and blue colors as the cap.”

These two women were being tested as never before. Jessie was totally focused on trying to
figure out how the machine worked as quickly as
possible. She found several pipettes and transferred small quantities of Beth’s blood into little
cuvettes and then placed the tiny plastic sample
holders into the machines. She tapped the start
icons on each instrument, and the machines immediately began drawing samples of the blood for
analysis.

The Complete Blood Count results began
printing first. Jessie handed Mary the printed
sheet. “Her platelet count is 157,000; that’s good.
Everything else looks normal.

The blood chemistry sheet was printing a
minute later, and Mary studied the results. “Everything’s normal,” she said.

The third machine printed out Beth’s clotting time. Mary said, “It’s a little high, but that’s
because we’re giving her the Streptokinase.

Mary found a small penlight and shined it
into Beth’s eyes. Beth blinked and spoke coherently for the first time. “What happened?” she said.

Mary answered her, “You had a stroke
Beth, but we got you into the operating room within a few minutes, and I’m giving you a drug now to
dissolve the clot. I think you’ll be okay. All your
vital signs look pretty good, but we’re going to have
to monitor you closely for the next few days, and
you’ll be taking baby aspirin every day from now
on.”

I looked around the room. There wasn’t a
dry eye in the crowd. Beth had hit a respondent
chord. It was true, we were all family now.