The Dystopian Diaries

by K. W. Callahan

  The less visible pantries in the pastry kitchen and employee cafeteria kitchen appear unscathed at this point. With the main entrance to the hotel a gaping hole now, and with the security presence no longer a factor, it’s only a matter of time before looters find their way to those spots as well. Therefore, I’m going to make a push to relocate as much stuff as I can to other, far less visible areas inside the hotel.

  7:27 a.m.

  Wow! It has been a super-busy last few hours. I’m exhausted! I feel like a squirrel stashing my hoards of nuts before the onset of winter. I’ve been hauling food all over the hotel. My legs feel like they’re going to give out. They’re like rubber from going up and down so many stairs. I need a shower BAD!

  The gunfire in the city around me seems to have decreased for the time being. I guess that’s a good thing. Who the hell knows for sure anymore.

  Anyway, now that I have the security guard’s master keycard, I have an idea. I’m going to head up to the pool for a quick cool down, take a little break, and then continue my food relocation work. I’m pooped, but I know that the more I can get stashed now, the better off I’ll be down the road. It’s only a matter of time before these people – or others – hit the hotel for the rest of its food.

  3:03 p.m.

  Well, now that I’m more tired than I think I’ve ever been in my life, it’s time to hunker down in my old sleeping spot (the closet in the ventilation hallway on the fifth floor) and take a break. I’ve outfitted this area nicely. I brought down a rollaway mattress from housekeeping, a mini-fridge, a microwave, and plenty of food, sodas, and now water as well (but I’ll get to that in a minute).

  I figured that this spot, since it’s more centrally located, will be my holdout for the moment. I can move upstairs or down later as my needs dictate. That brings me to my list of hiding spots. I need to write them down now while they’re fresh in my head least I forget about one.

  Okay, so here’s my list:

   Basement, property operations closet

   5th floor ventilation hallway closet

   Room 819

   Room 1027

   Room 1503

   18th floor housekeeping attic closet

  So there we go. It’s down for posterity, my secret stashes. I tried to spread them out so that I’m covered no matter what part of the hotel I’m in. And I did my best to ensure that there was no rhyme or reason to the room numbers I selected. While it might have been easier to go with 819, 919, and 1019 for memory’s sake, I also thought it might be easier for someone else to figure out that sort of logic given the opportunity. It’s like playing the game “Battleship”, too much logic or pattern in the positioning of your ships can burn you. That’s why I went for random rooms on random floors. The only similar location characteristic among the three was that they are all close to stairwells. This made my movement of supplies to them quicker and easier, and it also means that I have a quick escape route out should I need it.

  The mini-fridges in all the guest rooms were turned off, but I turned them back on in the rooms I selected for additional food storage. While they don’t provide much in the way of space, I can at least fit some stuff like hot dogs, a few small milk boxes, cheese, ham, and the likes inside.

  So back to my water situation. It’s not as pertinent a concern now that I have access to the guest rooms, but if at all possible, I’d prefer not to have to fish my drinking water from toilet tanks. But while I was on my way to take my bath in the swimming pool (which was super refreshing by the way), I noticed something. In the hotel’s fitness center, they have one of those office-style water coolers. While I didn’t need the whole unit, I took the water jug (which was about 80 percent full) from the top, and hauled it down to my ventilation hallway closet. Now I have gallons of fresh, non-toilet-tank drinking water at my disposal. What’s better is that there are coolers like this in the finance department, housekeeping department, sales and marketing departments, the front office, and the management offices as well that I’d completely forgotten about. While I really don’t want to have to lug them all to my secret spots since they’re pretty heavy, they are in fairly out-of-the-way areas, so I think I can chance leaving them where they are until I need them. Hopefully I can use them as sort of oases, filling smaller containers from them as needed.

  I suppose I could drink out of the pool in a worst-cast scenario, but the thought frankly disgusts me. Plus, I don’t think the chlorine would be too good for me. Maybe I could handle it in small doses; I don’t know. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Although with the way things are going, god only knows when help might arrive.

  As an afterthought, I also equipped all of my secret holdouts with a case or two of gel cooking fuel. These tiny self-contained heaters come in 8-ounce metal containers and once lit can burn for several hours. While they don’t necessarily get super hot, and it would probably take a lot of them to boil any worthwhile amount of water, they can be good for at least heating up small amounts of food. I took these from the catering department. They used to use them to keep their banquet food warm in metal chaffing trays, several of which I also took to carry the packs of gel fuel in. This way, if the hotel continues to operate without city power, and the backup generator eventually dies, I’ll at least have something to cook with.

  Okay, enough writing for now. I’m tired physically, and now I’m tired mentally from all this writing. It’s time for a nap.

  9:03 p.m.

  Oh man that was some good sleep. I haven’t slept like that since before all this started. It probably helped that the hours I was asleep matched up closely to the hours I used to sleep back when I was on the third shift.

  When I was working, I usually got home to my apartment a little after eight in the morning, had my “dinner”, maybe drank a beer or two, watched some television, did some chores around the apartment, and hit the sack at about noon. I was up again by eight at night, showered, had breakfast, got the 9:09 train back into the city, and was to work by 9:42.

  What a great life it was. While I took it for granted at the time, I’m beginning to realize just how good I had it. Now I wonder if I’ll ever get it back.

  What’s going to become of this place? The longer the flu goes on, the more destruction it appears is going to be done to the hotel. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe it will give me some job security. God only knows how many employees will return. I wonder how many got the flu and died or were killed by looters.

  I guess only time will tell.

  Alright, I’m going to head downstairs and see what the situation is. I’d really like to try to get some info about what is going on around the city or the rest of the country. I sure hope to hell that SOMEONE is working on a solution to this mess.

  10:46 p.m.

  The looters are back. I guess they like to operate under the cover of darkness. I’m heading downstairs to check things out. I’m taking the security guard’s gun just in case. I figure that if something goes wrong, I can at least flash it and hopefully back someone off without actually using it.

  Knowing this place like I do allows me to move around the hotel unseen. I feel almost like a ghost lurking in the shadows of darkened hallways. I just have to be careful I don’t get myself cornered by people mistakenly wandering into the hotel’s back-of-house areas I use to travel. Even then, I should be able to elude them pretty easily. There are five stairwells that lead from street level all the way up to the 18th floor, one in each corner of the hotel and one in its center. These were built to allow swift movement of guests in case of a fire. There are seven other stairwells, three that move mostly between the guest floors and four that mainly serve the public space from the street level up to the fourth floor. These stairwells allow me to zip in and out all over the place fairly quickly and quietly.

  11:52 p.m.

  Well that was interesting. I guess I have some new neighbors. After these fine folks got done lighting some of the lobby furniture on fire, and once the smok
e cleared, it looks as though some of them have decided to stay. I don’t know why they felt it necessary to torch the furniture first, but I guess I don’t quite understand the looter mentality. I think it’s safe to say that there is a definite culture clash between us when it comes to the way we act. I definitely prefer my surroundings un-charred.

  I guess it makes sense that some of them have decided to call the lobby home. They can just settle down where the food is rather than hauling it all the way back to wherever it is they came from. It’s not like they have to get back to work tomorrow morning or anything.

  I’m not real thrilled with the prospects of having guests inside the hotel again. It could make my life here a lot more difficult, not to mention dangerous. Hopefully I can stay out of sight until the food runs out and they move along. I’m not sure how long that’ll be, but this is exactly why I stashed stuff all over the hotel. I’d say that I can probably hold out in a number of spots – the basement, the fifth-floor ventilation closet, the housekeeping attic – for multiple weeks in each spot. And the guest rooms that I have stashes in could each get me through a week or more.

  I hope these people move on well in advance of those timeframes. But right now, there’s just no telling.

  September 13th

  1:03 a.m.

  There’s a firefight going on in the lobby! I’m watching from the second floor. I can barely see to write, though, so I’m just going to watch.

  1:56 a.m.

  I’m back upstairs in the safety of my ventilation hallway closet. I find myself wondering how my boss Manny and his family are doing. I can’t imagine going through this thing with kids. It’s bad enough on my own. Being responsible for others must be an incredible burden. I’d say the only good thing about such a situation is that at least he’s not alone. He has someone to spend his time with, express his thoughts to, and keep him occupied. I miss the night crew. It’s getting lonely as hell here. The looters aren’t very good company.

  Speaking of which, the whole debacle down in the lobby was pretty nuts to say the least. It appeared that one group of looters was trying to oust the other or at least take what they have. Crazy! I watched safely from a secure second-floor room adjacent the lounge. Before the hotel closed, the space was often used for overflow when we hosted large events in the lounge. The door leading into the room from the lounge is currently locked. But the space can be accessed from a stairwell that runs between the second, third, and fourth floors. I locked the door at the top of this stairwell from the inside, which means I would hear anyone trying to get into it while I was there.

  Inside this room is a small balcony with retractable doors that overlooks the lobby. From there, I watched through a small gap, unseen by the crazed masses below as they did their best to annihilate one another. I could watch what was going on because someone in the first looter group had put the lobby lights on. At the time, I wasn’t happy about that move since it meant a further drain on the backup generator. I also wasn’t happy about it because I was afraid the glow of the lobby light filtering outside the hotel into the all-encompassing blackness of the city night might attract other looters – which is exactly what happened.

  But I guess the first set of looters learned their lesson from this…at least the ones who are still alive. A small group of survivors from this first group ended up making a mad dash for it about 10 minutes into the firefight as it became apparent that they were on the losing end of the battle for hotel supremacy.

  Now a new group has settled in downstairs. Oh joy! At this point, I figure, the bigger the group the better. The more people, the quicker they use up the hotel’s remaining supplies. And the quicker they use up the hotel’s supplies, the sooner they’ll be out of here. That’s my logic at least. There’s no guarantee, but I can hope.

  7:25 a.m.

  I got some decent sleep. It wasn’t the best, but it was better than nothing.

  The looters appear to be resting. I guess they had a long night of fighting, feasting on the spoils of war, and then tidying up the mess they’ve made of the downstairs. In the meantime, and now that it’s light enough outside to see, I’ve crept downstairs to scout things out.

  I’m writing from a third-floor meeting room that overlooks the street. From here, I have a view out one of the bullet-shattered windows. I can see a pile of bodies the current looters must have dragged out of the hotel and piled in the street. I’ve counted at least a dozen corpses. And I can see several similar piles up the street. No one seems to care – police, firefighters, paramedics, National Guard…nobody. I mean, I guess I knew that it was bad by the fires that are burning around the city and the sounds of gunfire, but to see unattended piles of corpses in the streets really drives home just HOW bad things really are. Chicago has long been known for its violence, but there was always someone around who at least attempted to stem its tide – some sort of governing body and law-enforcement to reign in the derelicts and deviants. Now it’s as if the zookeepers have opened all the cages and left the zoo to let the animals run wild. It’s apparently survival of the fittest – no rules, no holds barred. To someone who has always been a law-and-order type person, such a situation is terrifying. I don’t know how to act. If someone confronts me, do I try to talk to them or shoot them? While I was a good manager, and an even better employee, this was definitely NOT something I was trained for. Customer service? Check. Proper bloodborne pathogen response, cleanup, and disposal? Check. Sexual harassment response and reporting? Check. Proper emergency and hotel evacuation procedures? Check. OSHA standards? Check. CPR certification? Check. Looter management and corpse pile response? Nope. Looter etiquette? Nope. Apocalyptic pandemic training? Nope. Not subjects covered in the employee handbook or human resource training seminars.

  I guess I’d better get back upstairs before the crazies rouse themselves. I don’t want to be added to the pile of corpses outside.

  2:39 p.m.

  I’m bored as hell. If I have to endure something like this, why couldn’t it be on some tropical island paradise? No, I’m trapped at work, in a ventilation hallway closet – great, just great. I get that I should be counting my lucky stars that I’m alive and in the situation I’m in, but it’s still hard to be totally appreciative.

  Why couldn’t the looters who came here be good people? I guess I shouldn’t judge. Maybe they were good people…ARE good people. Maybe it’s just that suffering under these extreme circumstances has changed them. Maybe they’re just doing what it takes to survive, to help their families survive. I might be doing the same thing were my own circumstances different.

  I think it’s time for a little nap if I can pull it off. But it’s hard to sleep when my mind is whirring a mile a minute. I keep thinking about the future and then trying not to. If things keep up like this, what’s in store for us? Will mankind be able to come back from this? Maybe things are different in other places. Maybe they have some sort of handle on the situation. It might only be a matter of time before a cure makes its way to Chicago. Probably won’t be many people left to cure by that point. Things sure are going to be a mess to clean up. Guess that means good job security for those of us who make it through this thing. Unemployment should be nonexistent. I just don’t want to be put on “dead body cleanup detail”.

  5:23 p.m.

  I dozed a bit, but it was a restless sleep. I kept seeing images of those dead bodies piled in the street. It was like news reels from Jewish concentration camps after World War Two.

  Not easy to calm the nerves after seeing something like that.

  I’m starting to go stir crazy here in my closet. I’ve been cooped up in dark, tiny, windowless rooms for far too long now. The past few weeks have felt like months. I would like to take another bath in the pool. I could really use it.

  Maybe I’ll wait until early morning when the looters are asleep. Then I can sneak up there and have a quick dip just to rinse off. I feel so sticky. The only good thing about my spot up here on the fifth floor is the ai
rflow from the ventilation shaft. When it gets a little stuffy inside my closet, I can open the door and let some fresh air waft in. I have to say, the sound of that air being circulated by unseen fans is strangely soothing. It’s like I’m a fetus, safe in the hotel’s womb. Strange observation I know, but true nonetheless.

  September 14th

  2:52 a.m.

  Well that certainly didn’t go as planned. I went down for my dip in the pool right around one this morning. I figured that it was a perfect time since none of the looters would be up. I even crept down to the lobby to double check that people were asleep. There were probably a dozen or more people crashed out around the lobby. They’ve turned it into a sort of hobo camp – food, furniture, clothing, sheets, pillows, all strewn around. It smells awful. I don’t know where they’re using the bathroom, but it smells like they’re doing their business right there in the lobby.

  Anyway, I’d just finished my swim and had gotten out of the pool. I was drying off, standing there buck naked other than the towel I was using, when I thought I heard something outside the pool area in the fitness center. It sounded like breaking glass, and I was immediately on guard. Without my clothes on, I felt vulnerable, but I didn’t want to take the time to put my pants on. Therefore, I cinched my towel tight around me, picked up the security guard’s gun that I was suddenly thankful I’d remembered to bring with, and made my way over to the pool area entry doors.

  There are two glass double-doors that lead into a small foyer – an air lock of sorts – dividing the pool from the fitness center. I was just about to enter the foyer when I sensed movement in the fitness center. You have to remember, there is very little light in this portion of the hotel. Only a single security light serves to illuminate the fitness center when the rest of the light switches are off. And I chose to swim in the dark not only for privacy (since I WAS naked) but for security as well, just in case someone happened to make their way up here.