The Power Struggle Series (Book 2): The Downward Spiral

by Douglas, Brian

  “Come in,” Lilliana said. “Naomi is in the kitchen.”

  “How’s Jack?” Alex asked looking to the living room, where Jack was sound asleep on the mattress.

  “Let’s talk in the kitchen, he had a rough night and we’re trying to let him sleep.”

  They walked to the kitchen, where Naomi was sitting at the table. Alex expected Andrea to be with her.

  “Where’s Andrea?” Alex asked.

  “I gave her some Valium and Aspirin as a precaution and she’s upstairs sleeping. She hasn’t been sleeping and has been having chest pains. It might just be the stress getting to her, but it’s hard to know without having equipment to run proper tests.”

  Alex saw the same look of concern on Naomi's face as he had seen on Lilliana’s and he wasn’t sure if it was for Jack or for Andrea.

  “So what’s the story with Jack? Lilliana said he had a rough night.”

  “Yes,” Naomi continued. “His fever went up overnight and the Acetaminophen I gave him did nothing to bring it down, so I’m sure that it’s an infection. It’s also starting to show some puss and smells bad. I gave him extra pain meds to help him sleep this morning, but I’m worried about the fever getting much higher without any way to control it.”

  “Ok, I think I have a plan to find some antibiotics. How long do you think I have to find some meds and get back here to start treating him?”

  “It’s hard to tell,” Naomi said. “He is strong, but he’s not a young man anymore, which increases his risks. Under the present circumstances, we may only have a few days, so the sooner we can start treatment the better.”

  “Ok, I’ll head out today.”

  “Are you going to Mike’s?” Lilliana asked, worried about the prospect of her brother in law making the long trek back to Randolph.

  “No, I think I have a closer option,” Alex explained. “The guys that shot Jack had a bunch of ID’s on them that may have belonged to the people they stole the pain meds from. When we looked at the addresses on the ID’s there were a few that didn’t live too far from here over in Roslindale and West Roxbury, so I’m going to try and check those houses. Hopefully I hit the jackpot at one of the closer houses and won’t be gone for too long.”

  “You’re not going alone, are you?” Lilliana asked.

  “We can’t afford to have too many of us out there. It’s more important to keep things secure around here.”

  “Olivia isn’t going to like your plan,” Lilliana informed him. “You had her stressed out when you didn’t come back right away the night you went to help Emma and Erik. Now you’re talking about going out again?”

  “Look, it’s not an ideal situation, but please save me the guilt trip. I don’t need to hear it from you right now and Olivia when I tell her about it ten minutes from now. Trust me, one guilt trip is plenty.”

  “Sorry,” Lilliana said. “I’m just worried.”

  “I know and I appreciate the concern. If it weren’t for Jack’s condition, I wouldn’t be thinking about leaving this place again. It’s dangerous out there and I take that very seriously. We just don’t have any other options, unless you two plan to start making Penicillin from old moldy bread.”

  “Jerk,” Lilliana said shaking her head in disapproval, while trying to suppress a laugh as she left the kitchen to go check on Jack. “Good luck telling your funny jokes to Olivia.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Alex entered his house hoping that his wife was there, so they could have a private conversation. He knew the children were next door, because he could hear the ruckus coming out of the Anderson’s house as he walked past. He was grateful that they could still play and have fun in their little neighborhood on the outskirts of the city, sheltered from the worst of the situation that affected the region. In that moment, he thought about a multitude of friends that lived in the more urban neighborhoods of Boston, where he knew the likelihood of survival was severely diminished.

  Alex heard Olivia upstairs and called up to her, “Hey babe, I’m home.”

  “Good morning. How was the night?” She replied.

  “Not bad,” Alex said as he walked up the stairs. “I’m guessing the kids are next door?”

  “Yes, Martina and Emma are watching them. I’m going to head over in a minute. I felt bad leaving them with all 6 kids and the two dogs, but I needed to get these batteries on the chargers.”

  Alex entered his bedroom, where they had the solar gear set up and he watched his wife plugging in the chargers for the Baofeng radio batteries as well as the 12 volt charger for all the AA and AAA batteries that they used for the smaller Motorola radios and flashlights.

  “I appreciate you taking care of all of this,” Alex said. “I know the kids keep you busy and I haven’t been able to help out around here as much as I would like.”

  “We’re a team,” Olivia said looking at her husband and sensing his apparent feeling of guilt. “You’re taking care of us in other ways. I know you wish you had more time to spend with us. Hopefully one day the power is turned back on and everyone that is left becomes civilized again and we can just veg out on the couch and enjoy a family movie together. But until then, we do what is necessary to keep surviving.”

  “I married the perfect prepper wife,” Alex said as he hugged his wife. They lingered in their quiet embrace for a minute, before Alex broke the silence and got straight to the point with the news he had to share. “I know you’re not going to like this, but I need to go out in search of meds for Jack.”

  “What? When?” Olivia asked, pulling back slightly to look at Alex with an expression of concern and disapproval.

  “Right away,” Alex said, trying to avoid eye contact with his wife. “Jack’s condition has taken a turn for the worse and if he doesn’t get antibiotics soon, it could be too late for him.”

  Olivia softened her expression and understood the importance of helping Jack, but still was not ready to settle the issue with her husband.

  “Well why you?” Olivia asked argumentatively. “It’s always you that goes out. I know you had to go out to get Erik, Emma and Samantha, but that was really the last time I wanted you to leave us alone like that. We thought you weren’t coming back and I don’t ever want to feel that way again. Can’t someone else go out for a change?”

  “We need someone to go out right away and your brother and Tony are both on guard duty.”

  “So what about Erik?” Olivia asked, immediately feeling terrible for volunteering someone else’s husband for the job.

  “Erik just finished his shift and, quite frankly, I would feel better with him staying here. Him and Martina are our best shooters and the people staying behind are the ones who are most capable of keeping this neighborhood safe. The last thing I want is for you and the kids to be in any danger. I don’t like this plan any more than you do, but I am the one who needs to go. I don’t take unnecessary risks and I make it home, every time. This will be no different.”

  Olivia hated going along with the plan, but in the end, she knew that Alex was right about him being the best choice for the task. He had clearly put a lot of thought into the decision and weighed his options beforehand, like he always did. The fact that he rarely made impulsive decisions was one of the many things that she loved about her husband.

  “You know this side of Boston like the back of your hand,” Olivia finally said with confidence. “I know Jack needs this and I know you will do whatever you need to do to make it back to us.”

  Alex pulled his wife close to him again and kissed her forehead. He imagined that a sappy ballad might play in the background, if this were a scene from a movie. But no music played and this was real life. The only background noise was the sound of the children playing next door and the thought of leaving his children again began to tug on his heart strings.

  Alex wondered to himself if he was making a wise decision. He cared about his friend Jack, but he also knew that he was putting himself at risk by going out. If he didn’t go out, Jac
k would likely die. However, if he did go out and got himself killed then they both would be dead and the neighborhood would potentially be worse off. The strength of their neighborhood was in their numbers and their collective support for each other and his family directly benefited from that symbiotic relationship. If something happened to him, that could put the entire group at risk.

  There was no time to second guess himself or allow himself to be distracted by thoughts of negative outcomes. Alex had to get his mind right and focus on the task at hand, so he kissed Olivia again and went to make his preparations to leave.

  CHAPTER 13

  Alex gathered his gear and departed on bike within the hour, leaving with little fanfare, after saying goodbye to his wife. He did not want to delay any further, so he did not bother gathering the entire neighborhood to run his plan by them. Partly because he had already committed to his decision and he knew that any more discussion on the matter would likely feed his doubts and might make him hesitate to leave.

  His plan was to ride the bike north along the parkway and to stash it somewhere in the northern most section of the wooded Stony Brook reservation property, before continuing on foot. He wouldn’t have to walk far, before he would enter a densely populated neighborhood in the Roslindale section of the City of Boston. He wanted to be able to avoid other people and evade them if necessary, which he figured would be harder to do on the bike. He also imagined that the bike itself would be a valuable target, since it was one of the few forms of reliable transportation left and he wanted to be able to protect the asset and avoid any unnecessary attention from the locals.

  Alex had not traveled north, since the EMP hit, so he was not sure what to expect. All he knew about the area was information he got from Naomi about the first few days after the disaster, when she was working in the ER at the Faulkner Hospital, which was not too far from Roslindale. She said that at least one plane had crashed in Roslindale and her ER was quickly overwhelmed by people injured by the subsequent fires that were fueled by the crash. Other than that, he didn’t know much, although he imagined the aftermath to be just as catastrophic as the rest of the city. As soon as the water shut off, he knew that things likely went from bad to worse very quickly in the neighborhoods he was about to visit. Alex assumed that after just over a month without running water or a reliable food supply, any survivors he came across would fall into one of three categories. They were either smart enough to have prepared ahead of time, figured out how to adapt to their situation or were just strong enough to take what they needed from others. The latter category was the one he was particularly worried about, so rather than take chances, he simply intended to avoid contact with anyone, if he could help it. He had his radio with him, but he knew that once he was past the parkway, it wouldn’t be much use to him, since there were a number of hills that would likely block his transmissions with his neighborhood. So he planned to be out of touch with no way to let his people know what was going on for most of the trip if anything happened to him.

  The ride on this stretch of the parkway was quite serene, without a house in view on either side of the road. The paved road itself, an occasional stalled out car and the power lines that still hung uselessly from their poles seemed out of place here. In reality, they were the only things preventing this part of Boston from looking like a destination that might entice backcountry campers to seek out as a way of escaping the noisy hustle and bustle of city life in search of peace and quiet. Alex loved this part of the city for that very reason and for the fact that it offered his family and neighbors somewhat of a buffer from the rest of the urban areas during this challenging time.

  After passing the small Turtle Pond, which the parkway was named after, Alex rode a mild, but steady, incline. The road would eventually become steeper and would bring him to the area of Bellevue Hill, which was the highest point in Boston at an elevation of 330 feet. From the major traffic intersection just below the wooded summit, one could catch a nice view of the iconic Prudential and John Hancock buildings, which represented the well known Boston skyline that was frequently depicted on postcards and other pictures associated with the city.

  Rather than ride the steepest section of the road, Alex decided to find a place to leave the bike. He found a small side trail on the right side of the road leading into the woods and he stashed the bike in the bushes just off the trail. He removed the shotgun scabbard from the bike and attached it to the molle webbing on the side of his Condor backpack. This was the same pack that had served as his emergency bag or get home bag that he used to keep in his car. He had it with him in Randolph, when he was stranded there due to the EMP. When he used it as his GHB, he kept it packed full of gear, but for this trip, it carried only a few items, since he wanted the extra space to carry any potential supplies he could scavenge.

  Alex took a moment to look around and was confident that he had picked a good spot to leave the bike. He could not see far down the trail, which did not follow a straight line, but he recalled walking on the path once before, when he first moved to the area and was exploring that section of the reservation. He remembered that the path led to a rocky area that had been littered with beer cans and bottles with a well used fire pit when he visited before. At the time, Alex determined that it was probably a regular hangout spot for local teens to party, given its close proximity to the public transportation buses that ran along Washington Street nearby. He had not been back to the site since that time and was a bit curious to see if it looked the same, but he did not want to delay, so he quickly returned to the parkway after tossing a couple of downed tree branches on top of the bike.

  As he pressed on up the inclining road, he took out his water bottle to take a drink. He then pulled out the bag of ID’s and tried to determine which house was the closest.

  “I should have organized these and made a list before leaving,” he said to himself as he walked along.

  There were a number of ID’s from the same street, which he knew was fairly close to him, so he planned to check there in hopes that he wouldn’t have to go any further than that neighborhood. The fact that he would be checking the houses in broad daylight made him feel more and more uneasy with each step, filling him with doubts about the plan. The cover of darkness or having time to stake out the homes a bit to ensure that they were unoccupied would have made him feel more comfortable, but he didn’t think he had that kind of time to waste, given Jack’s condition.

  Once Alex reached the main intersection at Washington Street, he looked to his right, to take in the view of the city. The two towers still stood side by side in the distance and appeared unchanged. However, the rest of the view reminded him of the view that he and David had at the top of the Great Blue Hill on their way back home from Randolph the day after the EMP. There were ever present smoke trails rising from different parts of the city, and many areas in view appeared quite different than they did before. In many places, blackened rubble replaced some of the homes that had previously dotted the skyline view from that particular spot.

  Seeing the magnitude of the disaster from a high point confirmed what Alex knew all along. That any recovery efforts, if they ever happened at all, were going to be years away and he and his family were in for a long haul. Somewhere in his subconscious, he had secretly hoped that he was wrong about everything and he wanted to believe that good old Uncle Sam was going to show up any day with the cavalry to turn the power back on and get things “back to normal.” That pipe dream died the instant he took in the apocalyptic view.

  Alex followed Washington Street, which was only a block away from the street that he planned to check first. He cautiously walked along, looking around for signs of life. It was eerily quiet as he scanned the area. He passed a small plaza with a pizza shop, liquor store and a coffee and donut spot that were still standing, but had clearly been ransacked. Alex wondered which of the three had been targeted first and imagined that the liquor store was the unlucky winner of that contest. The urge to check the
coffee shop for a bag of coffee that might have miraculously fallen into a hidden crevice was strong, but he resisted and kept walking.

  Most of the houses that were still standing and hadn’t been gutted by fire had broken windows and doors. He thought of stopping to check them, but decided to stick to his plan and check the addresses on the ID’s first. As Alex passed by one residence, he was startled to see a man standing behind a broken window in plain sight staring down at him. He had been lost in his thoughts and was not expecting someone to be there. His heart quickly began pounding harder as if he had seen a ghost. He didn’t break stride and tried not to look alarmed, but he wanted to get away from the home as quickly as possible without looking like he was trying to do so.

  A minute later, he reached the small side street that he was looking for and exited the main road. He quickly looked back to the home, where he now saw the man standing on his porch watching Alex from the distance. Once Alex was out of sight, he positioned himself in between two homes and removed the shotgun from the scabbard. He crouched and peered out from the corner of the home, listening for footsteps that might tell him if he was being followed. He tried to control his breathing and slow his heart rate as if he was afraid that they would be a beacon for his stalker to follow.

  A few minutes passed and Alex did not see any indication that he was being followed, so he looked around to get a bearing of which houses he was looking for. He could see the number on the house across the street that indicated he was on the even side of the street and was close to the first address he was searching for. He quickly stepped out from his position to look for a number on the mailbox for one of the houses and determined that he was in between #2 and #4. He was looking for #6, which was the next house over, but he hesitated to step back out onto the sidewalk to make the short walk over, because it would leave him more exposed. Instead he decided to approach from the back yard and he retreated from his position to do so.