Claire was rummaging in a bag behind me, setting stuff out on the floor, trying to put some order to the mess our supplies had become along our journey here.
I sat for another moment, staring at the overturned picture on the nightstand. I realized that just seeing the frame – even with the picture face down – would have me revisiting those same sad thoughts regarding the family’s fate. Therefore, I picked up the picture, opened the nightstand drawer, placed it inside, and closed the drawer.
I knew that we needed to get away from all this and that while some of the others in our group had questioned our coming to Miami, our plan was justified and necessary. Our children – our families – needed to escape this horribly depressing and dangerous world, at least for a while. In a year or two maybe, we could return and see what society had made of itself. Maybe it would begin to reorganize and even begin to thrive. Or maybe it would continue to eat itself alive. But I wanted no part of it right now; if not for myself and Claire, at least for Jason. Our little boy had done nothing to deserve all this, and I wanted better for him…for all of us.
“Oh my god,” I heard Claire breath behind me. “Oh no…no…no…no.”
I knew instantly that something was wrong; not just wrong, but terribly wrong.
“What?” I said, sternly, wanting, no, needing an immediate answer. I swiveled on the bed so that I could see her. She couldn’t use that tone and then leave me hanging. Those few words left my stomach churning, my chest tight, my breath short and panicked. I knew instantly, not from the words, but from the way Claire had said them, that something was very wrong. And I had a feeling – a gut-wrenching foresight – that I knew exactly what her words related to.
“My insulin,” she said, confirming my worst fears.
I exhaled, angry that I was right, angry at her for letting something happen to this critical supply, angry at myself for letting her let something happen to the one thing that kept her alive and with us and that we couldn’t easily replace. Food was attainable, water was attainable, shelter and clothing were attainable, but manufacturing insulin for her was the one thing we couldn’t do.
“How many vials broke?” I asked, and then waited.
Her silence was driving me crazy. It infuriated me because it scared me.
“HOW…MANY…BROKE?” I urged forcefully, standing and walking around to where she sat on her knees upon the floor.
She looked up at me, tears in her eyes, her bottom lip quivering. “I think…all of them,” she cried, holding up the small padded bag in which she had placed her vials of insulin. There was the sound of tinkling glass inside as she did so.
“How?” I asked incredulously. “How did you manage to break all of them? Christ, were you trying to break them?”
She shook her head, tears running down her checks, “I…I don’t know,” she gasped, starting to panic at the realization of what had happened. “I thought they were fine. I was so careful with them the whole trip. They were fine when we left the house back in Hialeah. I just don’t…don’t know what happened,” she sobbed, dropping the bag to the floor and covering her eyes. “I must have set the pack down wrong or dropped it too hard or something,” she continued. “I don’t know. Maybe I put something heavy on top of them. I’m not sure.” She hung her head, uncovering her eyes as tears dropped onto the floor beside the bag of hopelessly broken glass vials.
The anger that I felt at this horrifying realization faded as I watched my wife, and it quickly turned to compassionate sympathy and determination to somehow resolve the situation. I instantly flipped from fear to emergency mode in which I channeled this fear and converted it into a honed focus on the problem at hand.
“Okay,” I knelt and wrapped my arm around her, pulling her close. Jason toddled in from the living room where the others where finishing lunch. “Not now!” I barked at him, a little more harshly than I’d meant to. He quickly scuttled back into the living room.
Everything had changed in a blink of an eye, and I was rapidly trying to process what it all meant and how best to deal with this new and extremely dire situation that we now faced.
I took a minute to shut my angry mouth and instead just comforted Claire. If anyone should have a reason to be upset, it should be her; and I felt I’d been selfish in my initial reaction. But my whole reason for being angry was selfish. I wanted to keep my wife alive, not just for her sake, but for mine, and Jason’s, and Emily’s, and everyone else’s in the group. So yes, I was being selfish, but I felt somewhat justified in my self-centered motives.
“Don’t worry. It’ll be okay,” I soothed, rubbing her back softly. “So what about reserves?” I asked.
“What reserves?” she said in frustration. “These were my reserves.”
“Yeah…but what about shots?” I said, not completely getting it.
“Those syringes don’t come fully loaded with insulin,” Claire shook her head. “I have to load them…with that,” she gestured at the bag of broken vials. “Without insulin, the syringes are useless, they’re just empty syringes.”
I took a deep breath, processing the magnitude of what she was saying. “Shit,” I breathed. “So what about your blue bag?”
Claire always kept a tiny blue zipper-bag close at hand with a vial of insulin, her blood tester, some test strips, and a couple syringes. It was her “daily use” bag where she kept the supplies she’d need on a regular basis.
“How long do you have with the insulin that’s in there?” I prodded.
“A week or two,” she said, wiping the tears away.
“Okay,” I nodded, feeling some slight relief at our growing timeline.
“When it’s full,” she added.
I took another deep breath, concerned again. “When did you refill it last?”
“Last week,” she answered.
I tilted my head back. “So we’ve got, what, a week, right?”
“Yes,” she nodded sullenly.
I pulled her up closed to me and hugged her tight. “Okay,” I said. “It’ll be alright.”
I couldn’t help questioning the words as they came out of my mouth, but I had to say them, for both of us.
“Your job from this second forward is to regulate your blood sugar levels as best you can and maximize what little insulin you have left,” I told her.
“That’s what I’ve been doing,” she said, the fear evident in her voice.
“I know,” I said calmly. “But now you have to push it to the max. Buy me a little more time. Okay?”
“Okay,” she agreed.
“Now I’ve got to go get some stuff organized and ready. We’re going to the market downtown tomorrow and I need to gather as many things as possible to barter with.”
She nodded. “You stay here and take a nap or eat a snack. Whatever you need to do keep your blood sugars stable, you do it or you let someone know what you need. Got it?”
“Okay,” she said somewhat meekly.
“No,” I shook my head. “Not okay. You do it. Don’t be afraid to ask…whatever it is. There’s no feeling guilty about putting someone out with a request or being a burden. You ask. Okay?”
She nodded with vigor and looked at me with a sweet smile, pulling me close and giving me a big hug. “Thank you,” she said softly into my ear. “I love you.”
I pulled away, not because I wanted to but because I was in a hurry to get started. I didn’t need words to tell her that I loved her too, I wanted to do so with actions, but I said the words anyway as I stood up to get started.
I gave the rest of the group a quick rundown of the situation and then recruited everyone who wasn’t assigned to getting our water supply set up – since without water, none of us would be able to help Claire – to assist me.
By nightfall, we’d collected a nice stash of items from the surrounding third-floor apartments. We continued working, taking shifts throughout the night, using flashlights as we moved our search down to the second floor. By morning, while exhausted, I felt
better about our prospects of being able to trade for certain supplies we needed, which I prayed would include insulin for Claire.
As morning broke, dad and I began to bag up some of the items we hoped to trade at the market. We had several trash bags full of stuff. We put everything we thought might be tradable into them as we had no idea of what the hot items at market might be. From sets of knives, cigarette lighters, candles, and batteries, to certain clothing items, toiletries, medicine, pain relievers, ammunition, guns, fishing poles, and more, we tried to pull together everything that might be worth something to someone – with the exception of food and water – to take with us.
I asked dad to accompany me downtown. I wanted Will to stay with the family just in case something happened while we were away. I had no idea what the environment downtown would be like, and I was aware of the prospects that we might not return from our trip.
We decided to take half the stuff we’d accumulated to trade. This way we could hedge our bets. If we got robbed or something happened, we wouldn’t be completely out of luck and there’d still be things to barter for a chance at saving Claire, even if dad and I weren’t around.
The next step in our efforts to get downtown involved finding a vehicle. With all the abandoned cars in the area, the task at first seemed simple; however, it took a bit more work than I initially expected. Since we weren’t car thieves, and we didn’t know how to hotwire a vehicle, we needed to find keys and match them up with a corresponding vehicle.
Therefore, we started casing apartments in a search of car keys.
We decided to start with the apartments that still had occupants – albeit dead ones – figuring the odds were better that their vehicles were likely still parked somewhere nearby. I had seen a row of garages behind the apartment building and that were painted the same color as the building itself, so I assumed they served as parking for the property.
After going through six apartments, we came up with three sets of keys. We took them outside and around back with us and started going from garage to garage in an effort to match up the manufacturer logos on the key rings with the correct vehicles. As we did so, we checked the vehicles for fuel. Unfortunately, it appeared as though someone had beaten us to the punch and siphoned nearly all the vehicles empty. After about 20 minutes of searching, we managed to locate two of the vehicles to which we had corresponding keys. The problem was that after nearly a year of sitting unused in a garage, the batteries to both were completely dead and we had no way to recharge or jumpstart them.
“Looks like we’re walking,” said dad.
“Could be dangerous,” I said warily.
“I don’t see a way around it,” he shrugged.
I nodded, “Yeah…guess you’re right.”
I took one last look at a map of downtown Miami that we’d found inside one of the cars.
“You know where we’re going?” dad asked.
“I think so,” I said. “Myron, the trader back in Hialeah, said that most of the trading downtown took place on the bay front at a spot called Bayside Marketplace. It’s about five or six miles from here. We should be able to make it there by early afternoon and hopefully get back by nightfall.
“Be a long day…especially carrying the stuff we have to trade,” dad said. “But it’s worth it,” he smiled at me.
“Damn straight it is,” I replied.
“I’ll keep the map handy just in case,” said dad.
“No faith in your son?” I grinned at him.
“Lots of faith in you…little remaining faith in humanity,” he frowned sadly. “Could be roadblocks, armed gangs…you name it.”
But there weren’t. Things seemed to have calmed dramatically since our arrival to the Miami area. We actually found the downtown area fairly quiet, arriving just after two in the afternoon as we lugged our bags of supplies and an assault rifle each along with us. In the old days, I would have considered it a tough hike, but compared to our trek to get to Miami, it seemed like a stroll in the park.
As we neared the marketplace, we realized that this particular portion of town was bustling with activity. Area business people had rows of stands set up with brightly painted signs. Some had just pulled in pickups, their beds loaded with supplies, or backed in delivery trucks with the rear doors open to reveal their goods.
I noticed several armed men standing guard at the market’s entrance, and it appeared that most of the traders, as well as the shoppers, carried some sort of firearm. But other than that, everything appeared natural, as though rifles and side arms were now the cell phones and sunglasses of the day.
“What’s the plan?” asked dad.
“Let’s just walk a little bit,” I said. “We can watch, listen, and see how this all works. It’s probably a lot like back in Hialeah, but I don’t want to start off by stepping on anyone’s toes.”
We spent about 15 minutes wandering, inspecting the wares of different merchants. We stopped and watched a few transactions take place from afar so that we knew what to do when the time came.
As we stood watching a middle-aged woman trade a basket of vegetables for a pair of eyeglasses, a voice from behind us said, “Welcome to downtown Miami! Glad to see you made it!”
I turned to see the Myron, the same trader from the Westland Mall market back in Hialeah, smiling at me from a nearby stand.
Dad and I walked over and shook hands. “Didn’t expect to see you here,” I said, smiling at him.
“I get around,” Myron laughed jovially. “Got to go where the business is, and these days, the business is downtown.”
“Well, it’s good to see you,” I said. “I have to tell you though, we’re still in the market for insulin if you’ve come across any.”
“Not me,” he said. “But I know a guy here who might have some. Won’t come cheap though.”
“Didn’t figure it would,” I said. “Just hope it’s not too expensive. We’re running low on food and water too.”
“Well, I can take care of that side or your shopping list,” Myron said. “I see you have stuff to trade.”
“Yeah,” I nodded, letting my bag of wares sag to the ground beside me. Dad followed suit.
“What you got?”
“All sorts of stuff. You looking for anything in particular?”
“I’ll tell ya, there’s some stuff I just can’t move, other stuff I have tons of, and some things I can’t find anywhere. It’s really just hit and miss. I’d have to see what you’ve got to give you an idea of whether I need any of it.”
“What about the guy with the insulin?” I said. “You know what he’s looking for?”
“I’m not exactly sure, but the word on the street is that pretty soon the way business is going to be transacted is with bullets. They’re supposedly going to be the new currency.
“Bullets?” I said. “Really?”
He nodded. “Looks that way. I’ve heard that the operation running things in town now is pushing for bullets to be used like cash. Makes sense if you think about it. They’re long-lasting, everybody needs them, they’re easy to transport, and anybody with any brains carries them these days,” he nodded to all the heavily-armed people around us and then patted his own sidearm that he wore in what looked like a hand-made holster around his waist.
“True,” I tilted my head to the side, considering.
“It’d make my life a hell of a lot easier,” Myron said. “Trying to barter stuff all the time gets old. People come in here with all sorts of useless crap and they just expect you to give them the things they want for it whether you want their shit or not. They come across a truckload of toothpaste or a bunch of winter gloves and expect you to give them good food and water for it or gasoline. It just doesn’t work like that. If I don’t need it, I’m not going to trade for it, plain and simple. Having a standard currency though, now that would make things a lot less complicated on my end. Being able to sell stuff for bullets and then take those bullets to one of the warehouses controlled by thi
s operation and buy the stuff I need would make everything simpler and a heck of a lot less time consuming. Like going to Costco in the old days,” he smiled. “Remember that?”
“Yeah…I remember,” I said, thinking back to how easy it all used to be.
“Why don’t you let me take a look at what you got?” Myron said.
He invited us around behind his display area to an empty table he had set up where we could lay out all our goods.
He sifted through the stuff, dividing it into three piles. “Good,” he’d nod, shoving items into one pile. “Meh,” he’d say, shoving things into another, and “Junk,” he’d say, pushing other stuff into a third pile.
When he was done, most of the stuff we’d hoped to trade was shoved into the “Meh” and “Junk” piles. It was very disheartening.
He pointed to the junk pile which included things like clothing, knife sets, toothpaste, deodorant, and several fishing poles and associated gear. “You wouldn’t believe how much of this stuff we get and how hard it is to move,” he said.
The “Meh,” pile included things like cigarette lighters, candles, lip balm, several pairs of eyeglasses, some contact solution, and various balms, salves, and ointments.
“We get a lot of this stuff,” Myron nodded at the pile, but it gets used up pretty quick, so people are always looking for it.
The “Good,” pile included things like aspirin, batteries, several silver ounce rounds that I still had left, some spare ammo we’d tossed in for guns we no longer had, and two handguns for which we were out of ammo.
“Hey, Craig!” he called to a nearby vendor, “Come take a look at this stuff!”
A burly, sweaty-looking man who appeared to be around 40 years of age and with shoulder-length curly black hair ambled over. He wore blue jeans and a dingy white t-shirt from which the sleeves had been ripped.
“What can I do for ya?” he mumbled over a mouthful of some sort of sandwich he was chewing. Bits of bread and saliva flew from his mouth as he spoke.
“These men are looking for insulin,” Myron explained. “Think you can help them out? They’re good people.”
ASCENSION: THE SYSTEMIC SERIES Page 10
