Survivors (2 page)

Jessie finally broke free from my embrace.
She looked into my eyes. “That’s the last time I will
ever cry. I’m done crying. We’re both alive, and
there are other survivors. There must be a couple
dozen in the Naples area alone. We need to find
them and plan our future.”

I thought about Jessie’s words; they were
like a slap in my face forcing me to abandon the
horrific realities of the past and consider the uncertainty of the future. There was no denying my
hurt or the world’s hurt, but now it was time to
stop grieving and to get on with life. I reached out
and held her again in my arms and kissed her on
her forehead. “Thank you,” I said, “You’re right;
let’s find the survivors.”

Jessie looked at me and started to laugh.
“You can’t go searching for people looking like that;
you look terrible, and you smell like shit.”

I looked at myself as best I could, and she
was right. I hadn’t cleaned myself or shaved since
the water stopped running. I looked over at the
swimming pool. The pump was no longer circulating water, but it still looked clean. “I’ll cleanup in
the pool.”

She was about to take off her top ready for
a skinny dip until I stopped her. “You’re my wife’s
size. You can use one of her bathing suits.”

We both walked inside the house. With no
air-conditioning, the temperature was over ninety
degrees. I rummaged through Gloria’s closet until I
found a drawer with a few swimsuits. I handed
them to Jessie and told her to take her pick. I
pointed her to the guest bedroom to change, and I
headed for my own closet. I threw my dirty smelly
clothes into our hamper, put on my swimming
trunks, and found two clean beach towels in the
linen closet.

I dropped the towels on a table and stepped
into our swimming pool. The water was pretty cold,
but no worse than a swim in the ocean. A few
minutes later Jessie joined me wearing Gloria’s favorite black bathing suit. We sat in the shallow end
with the water just below our necks.

It was time to get to know my new-found
friend. “Jessie, tell me about yourself. I want to
know everything about you.”

“Okay, but then it will be your turn. I’m a
Senior at Duke majoring in genetic engineering. I
had a boyfriend, but given the odds, he’s probably
dead. I came home for Christmas break. The CDC
was just beginning to realize that nobody was going to make it if they became infected. Just before I
left for home, one of my professors showed me the
mathematical projections. He predicted almost everyone would die in seven more weeks, and then it
would all be over.

“Anyway, when I got home my mother was
already showing symptoms. We tried to get her into
the hospital, but it was full, and there was a long
waiting list. She died a week later just as my dad
was showing the first signs of the disease.

“We buried mom in our backyard. Everyone
in our neighborhood was doing the same thing. My
dad died a week later, and then my brother died in
my arms. I dug all their graves and buried them
next to each other.”

Jessie’s eyes were swollen and a glossy red.
She had tears in her eyes, and she tried to hide
them by dunking her head underwater. She just
sat silently next to me in the pool staring at the red
Bougainvillea bush on the far side of the lanai. Finally she faced me and said, “So Jim, what’s your
story? What did you do before the shit hit the fan?”

“I met my wife Gloria at school. We got married as soon as we graduated, and our daughter
arrived two years later. I was in the injection
molding business. My partner and I developed a
process for manufacturing plastic cups. Actually,
he was the one who developed the process. I was
the business guy who ran the company. It’s funny,
Bruce was a genius, but he had no idea of how to
run a business.

“Anyway, we sold the business last year. I
got a little over twenty million dollars. A hell of a
lot of good it’s going to do me now.”

Jessie said, “So you know how to organize
and plan things. That means we’re going to need
your skills to survive. I’m going to be counting on
you.”

I thought about Jessie’s comment. She was
probably right; I did have the organizational skills
to help us survive. “Come on,” I said, “let’s find the
other unlucky survivors.”

We toweled off and walked back into the
house. Jessie said, “My clothes are dirty. Can I
borrow some of your wife’s clothes?”

Twenty minutes later we were ready to
leave. I had shaved with some cold water from the
pool, and I almost looked presentable. I had been
thinking about the best place to look for survivors.
“Let’s take two cars. All things being equal, we
should find the most survivors in the most densely
populated areas. So let’s drive through Pelican
Bay. There’re some high-rise condos along the
beach. Then we can drive through Venetian Village.
There must be fifty high-rise buildings there. We
can finish our search in downtown Naples. Survivors may have congregated there.”

It was a plan, and the two of us drove our
cars out onto Livingston Road. I had no idea of
what to expect. I hadn’t ventured outside my community in the last three weeks. Not unexpectedly,
the road was deserted. From time to time we
passed abandoned cars, and I even saw some birds
picking at the remains of a dead body by the side
of the road. I looked the other way, and I assumed
it wouldn’t be the last dead person I would see eaten by a variety of animals. A morbid thought
crossed my mind; the rat population would swell in
the next few months as their food supply grew beyond their greatest expectations.

We turned right onto Vanderbilt Beach
Road and entered the upscale Pelican Bay community just west of Route 41. We passed through
an unguarded gate and stopped our cars in front of
a group of condos spread out along the beachfront.
We both began leaning on our horns trying to signal our arrival to anyone who might be around.

A woman stepped out onto a balcony about
ten stories up in one of the nearby condos. She
was holding a little baby and waved to us. Jessie
and I motioned for her to come down. The woman
seemed to understand and disappeared inside her
unit.

Ten minutes later a lady who looked in her
sixties hurried over to the car and greeted us. “My
name’s Mary Higgins. I was hoping someone would
come by. This is Carla. She’s not mine; her mom
died last week, and I’ve been taking care of her.”

Mary began to cry. She finally cleared her
throat and said, “I haven’t seen anyone else. I
couldn’t get into any of the other buildings; they’re
all locked up, but I haven’t seen anyone outside on
the street for about a week. There may be little
children in some of these condos who are still alive,
but I have no way of knowing.”

Here was our first major decision. Should
we break into each building to search for little kids
who didn’t know how to leave their homes? It
might take hours. There were nine buildings in the
complex. We would have to break into each highrise, climb up to the top floor, and knock on each
door. Of course we could try to break into each
unit, but that would take several days to accomplish. “Mary, did you check the units in your building?”

“I knocked on every door and listened for
any sounds. That’s how I found Carla. She was
crying. I broke the lock with my husband’s gun. He
died a couple years back but I still keep his shotgun.”

I looked at Jessie. “I don’t think I’ll be able
to live with myself if we don’t at least try to check
each building.”

We let Mary stay with little Carla while Jessie and I split up and began a systematic search of
each high-rise building. Entry was not an easy
task. In the first building I could enter the lobby,
but the door leading to the elevators and stairways
was locked. With no power and nobody at the
guard’s desk there was no way to get inside.

I solved the problem by throwing a heavy
table lamp through the glass door. I reached in
carefully and unlocked the door from the inside.
This building was about twenty stories high, and it
took another few minutes to climb the stairs to the
top floor. I screamed at no one in particular and
began walking down the hallway banging on doors.
I listened for any sounds, anything indicating the
presence of another living person.

The smell of death was overpowering and
permeated the hallways throughout the building.
Decaying human flesh; the smell is like nothing
else you can imagine, and I would learn to recognize this characteristic odor for many months to
come.

It took me thirty minutes to walk through
all twenty floors, and I heard no sign of another
survivor. After touching base with Mary, I advanced to the next building. This one was only sixteen stories, and now I knew how to break through
to the stairways, so it only took a few minutes to
reach the top floor. I worked my way down to the
eleventh floor, and that’s where I found little Jack.
He looked around four years old, and he was playing with a red Tonka fire engine in the hallway.

He looked up, seemingly not surprised to
see another person. “Hi, my name’s Jim; what’s
your name?”

Jack led me into his unit, and I saw his
mother lying on the bed in the master bedroom.
“Mommy’s asleep now. She needs her rest. She told
me she was sick.”

Of course Jack’s mommy had been dead for
many days, and the smell from her decaying flesh
was intense. I lifted Jack into my arms and kissed
him on his cheek. “Jack, your mommy called me
on the phone a few days back and asked me to
take care of you until she got better. We need to
leave now, okay?”

“I ate this morning. Mommy left all the food
out on the kitchen counter. I ate a thousand Oreo
Cookies and apple juice. Then I went poop in the
toilet, but the toilet doesn’t work anymore.”

Jack and I continued to search for survivors, but the rest of the building was empty. Mary
took care of Jack while I continued searching the
other buildings. It took another two hours to explore the remaining condos, and when Jessie and I
were done we had only found Mary, Jack, and little
Carla. Before we left the area, Mary and Jessie
spent another thirty minutes getting baby formula,
diapers and other supplies for Carla.

Mary sat in the front seat of Jessie’s car
with Carla in her arms. I guessed she wouldn’t be
getting a ticket for the lack of a car seat. I asked
Jack if he wanted to sit in the front seat with me.
He didn’t answer; he just jumped into my car, and
I helped him put on his seatbelt.

We slowly cruised through the rest of Pelican Bay making a lot of noise with our two horns
blaring. We stopped periodically and waited for
survivors. I thought of the little kids who were
trapped just like Jack in their homes. They were
alive, but wouldn’t be for very long. Perhaps tomorrow we would drive by again, and if we could find
enough survivors, we would do a more complete
search. I began to understand the moral dilemma
faced by doctors on the battlefield who just had to
let the severely injured die in order to save as
many soldiers as possible.

We finally left Pelican Bay and headed
south to Venetian Village. This narrow key just
west of Route 41 consisted of a mile long strip of
condos and apartments with a centrally located
shopping center. The bay area looked a lot like
Venice; thus the name Venetian Village.

I looked at my watch. It was already almost
two o’clock. We could easily spend a full two days
trying to find survivors, and I didn’t think my body
could withstand climbing up dozens of thirty story
buildings. As we drove over the short bridge leading into the residential section, I was surprised to
see a group of people milling around the shopping
center’s parking lot. Jessie and I parked our cars
in an open area, and we all walked over to the
small group of survivors.

A bald man in his sixties with a beer belly
walked up to us and embraced each of us in turn.
We were immediately surrounded by the seven
people in the parking lot. Everyone seemed to realize all of us were now one large extended family,
and somehow if we were going to survive, it would
be because we all worked together. Nothing was
said; it was just something each of the adults understood.

Stan Kolinsky, the bald guy, walked us over
to a grouping of tables and chairs and asked if we
wanted some hot coffee. It was already over eighty
degrees, but the idea of a real cup of coffee sounded great. The group had set up a few Weber grills
and was using charcoal to heat a large pot. Stan
dipped a ladle into the pot and poured three cups
of a mixture of grounds and coffee into some
Styrofoam cups. Then we all sat down on some
chairs in the shade. Jack found a new friend; Bobby was his name, and both of them immediately
began playing with Jack’s fire engine. A young girl
around ten years old named Ruth Putnam joined
the three adult men and two older women named
Margaret Fein and Janet Walters, and we all moved
our chairs into a large circle.

It took us a few minutes to make all of the
introductions. Stan, George Miller, and Bill Smith,
the three adult males in the group, explained they
had spent the last four days breaking into each of
the buildings along the strip and these seven survivors were all that were left of this once vibrant
community.

Stan said, “We know we can’t stay here
much longer; nothing’s working, and most of our
homes are at least ten stories up.”