All We Have (The Survivor Journals Book 3)

by Sean Little

  The last week of television was filled with a lot of pundits trying to find a scapegoat for the Flu. The Big Three networks gave up on programming and went to twenty four-hour news coverage until all their on-air talent was too sick to continue. I remember the talking heads on TV casting a lot of blame. One channel blamed the Russians. One channel said it was a viral weapon attack from some Mideast extremist group. Another channel said it was the fault of our own government, a lab experiment gone bad. The right-wing channels blamed liberals. The left-wing channels blamed conservatives. They all spat venom and vitriol at each other, everything, and everyone until there was nothing left but silence. The final week of television was spent with people desperately trying to find answers and cast blame. It was sickening. In the end, the left-wing and right-wing, the religious and the atheists, the rich and the poor—they all ended up dead and decaying. The Flu was the Great Equalizer.

  Until the Internet stopped working, I spent a lot of time desperately seeking answers. What caused the Flu? Where did it start? Was there anything that was showing promise as a cure? All I knew for certain was that the airline hub cities went down first, and then the virus spread out to the small communities from there. Houston was a hub city. Houston got hit hard. George Bush International and William P. Hobby Airport were ground zero for the virus in Houston. Anyone taking off or landing from Houston became a carrier of the virus within the first week. Same with all airports, but given the size of the two airports in Houston, the virus was spread very quickly throughout the area, and then onto the rest of Texas.

  A person gets on a flight in a city. He lands in Houston—boom! Infected. He won’t know he’s infected for at least thirty days. That was the length of time it took for the virus to fully infect its host to the point of showing symptoms. However, during those thirty days, the virus was reproducing and shedding at an alarming rate. Simply passing by someone with the virus was enough to get you infected with it. For thirty days, that person with the virus infected every single person they came into contact with in his daily life. At work. At the grocery store. At church. At the mall. At sporting events. At schools. On public transportation. Those people that got infected by that one person all went about their daily lives, shedding virus to those that they knew. Within five weeks, they would be dead, and they didn’t even know it. The virus took a little more time to filter out to the smaller towns and communities, but it got there. No one was safe. It was impossible to be safe. The Center for Disease Control declared it a world-killer the day before TVs went dark. Only those of us lucky enough (or unlucky enough, maybe) to be born with a natural immunity to the virus would survive.

  Because of Houston’s status as a hub city, it got hit hard and fast. The panic set in quickly as soon as people started dying in great numbers, and thus, the city went into full riot mode. Stores were looted. Buildings were burned. Gun battles broke out in the streets over supplies like canned food and water. It was chaos. For a week. And, then everyone went to the Great Sleep, and peace reigned in the city once again. That week of chaos messed up the city badly, though.

  It took me most of the morning to just get to what I considered to be the edge of the city proper, and the better part of another hour of riding to get to where the major stores were located. Houston, like most major cities, was a tight city center surrounded by sprawling suburbs of various levels of wealth. The first time I went into the city after we settled on the farm, I had been shocked by the destruction of the city. It was bad. Clearly, a year of no humans had not done the city any favors. There was evidence of severe damage, maybe a hurricane, maybe a tornado or two. Dozens of buildings were ripped apart in swathes. Debris was scattered in fields around them. The stores had been well looted during the final days of the Flu. Some stores had been looted in Madison, sure. But, not to this level and extent. Entire stores had all the goods ripped from the shelves and piled haphazardly in the aisles. People had started fires in the middle of stores just to start fires. Liquor stores were empty of everything but dust. One thing that never failed to make me laugh was the fact that people thought to steal all the lottery scratchers at convenience stores. What was the thought process behind that? Man, if the world doesn’t die, I’m totally going to be rich!

  I had a basic road map for Houston, one taken from an atlas. It showed me the streets and highways, but it did not have locations for things like Home Depot or Lowe’s. Those I had to guess at. The branded store signs high atop tall metal spires helped me locate them, but I still had to get close enough to see them on the horizon.

  I learned early on in my post-Flu survival that I should always take more than I thought I would need. I spent the entire afternoon going to various stores and loading up on the things I would need to erect the stockade wall. I got tall stepladders, scaffolding platforms and pipes, pulleys, ropes, hand-crank winches—you name it, I was throwing it in the cart because who knows what I might need.

  Hera suffered through the afternoon in silence. I brought her inside the buildings to get her out of the sun and let her cool down, but she still had to stand next to the door because I couldn’t get the cart through most of the doors. I had to make sure to get her water to keep her hydrated. I gave her a pile of grass to munch on to keep her occupied. At the same time, I could not stray too far from her. The feral dog packs in Houston were large. A horse tethered to a heavy cart would be easy prey for them.

  It had taken me all of an hour to know that I would not be getting back to the farm the same day I left. The supplies were everywhere. I had to wade through a disaster scene and pluck out the useful bits. It was not like I could just walk in and pluck what I needed from organized shelves. Everything I found took work to get, and more work to load into the cart. I resigned myself to having to camp overnight and getting back to the farm the next day. When I made that decision, the next step was to make sure I came back with as full a cart as Hera could manage. If I was going to make a two-day journey to Houston, I should come back fully loaded.

  I waded through clothing stores, housewares stores, and hardware stores. Anything that might be valuable or useful went into the cart. I found stockpiles of diapers and mason jars. I added more solar panels to replace the ones that were destroyed in the storms. I got spools of electrical wires and specialized tools to add more power to the house. I got electric saws and cordless drills with large battery packs. Having electrical power again was a treat. Things that I thought I would never be able to use again were once again valuable and useful. I got a food processor for making baby food. We would need that, eventually.

  I went to one of the hospitals on Houston’s north side and took as many supplies as I could hold. I was able to open the double-doors to the lobby and walked Hera into the cool darkness of the lobby, shutting the doors behind her. Hera’s nose wrinkled at the lingering stench of death. All the hospitals were mausoleums now. Even in the lobby, I could see bodies scattered about like cordwood. Desiccated corpses slumped on the waiting room chairs, on the floors, and on gurneys. I had to tiptoe over bodies to get to the supply closets. In the final days of the Flu, the nurses and doctors, all battling their own symptoms, had waged a valiant war against the virus, but ultimately, all of them died in their scrubs, slumped on desks or curled up on the floors. As bad as I felt for the patients who died scared and miserable in beds or in waiting rooms, I felt worse for the medical professionals who gave their all in a hopeless, losing effort. They were the real heroes of the last week of the Flu.

  Leaving one of the hardware stores, Hera began to get antsy. I saw her eyes roll to the side. Following her gaze, I saw what had her on alert: a grizzly bear, a massive mound of muscle and thick, coarse brown fur, had just ambled around the corner of the building. Grizzlies were, of course, not native to the Houston area. Likely, he had been in the zoo. It did not make him less dangerous, though. The beast stopped not more than thirty yards from us. He looked as shocked to see us as we did him. I carefully moved toward the shotgun I had in the cart
. I had no idea if a shotgun would be enough to kill a grizzly bear, but if I must, I would try. The bear surveyed us for a few moments. He was thick and round. He must be eating well. I tried not to think about what he was eating to keep himself so healthy. After several tense moments, the bear decided that we were not worth investigating further and continued on his easy, unhurried pace through the cityscape.

  As the sun dropped lower in the sky, I knew I needed to find some sort of shelter for the night, someplace where I could get Hera fenced in and safe, and then get the saddle and harness off her. She needed a break from being the proverbial workhorse. I wander through the side streets of the northeast side suburbs. Eventually, I found house with a three-car garage that was empty of corpses. I don’t know why I have such a problem with sleeping in a house where someone died, other than to say that I just do. It bothers me. I hate feeling like I’m disrespectful to the dead. I feel guilty, too. I feel like I should give them a properly burial or funeral. If I did that for every body I found, I would never stop digging graves, though. Life is for the living. I could not help the dead.

  I had to use tools to defeat the locks of the house, and in doing so I rendered the front door lock useless. I set the cart down in the driveway of the home, freeing Hera from the harness and saddle. Then, I fed and watered her. The five-gallon buckets of water I hauled from the farm were warm, but it was clean water. I could not do better than that. Hera drank deeply. She seemed to be glad to be free of the saddle. I put her on a picket line in the front yard to graze. I don’t think I had to picket her; I think she would have stayed near me, regardless, but it gave me peace of mind.

  Then, I built up a small fire in an adobe brazier that I found on the porch of one of the neighboring houses. I used scrap twigs and old newspaper for kindling, and I found a chunk of wood on someone’s porch for the main fuel. I heated a can of beef ravioli for dinner and ate it with a plastic spoon. Then, there was not much else to do than go to sleep. I put Hera in the garage, feeling guilty for making her stand on hard concrete all night. She did not seem to mind. The moment the doors of the garage closed, she gave a sigh of relief and drowsed. I left the interior garage door to the house open so I could hear her if she began to panic, and I collapsed on a dusty couch in the house’s living room.

  I slept too easily that night, utterly exhausted from the long ride and subsequent scavenging. I was too complacent, I think. Maybe I was getting to the point where I was just used to being alone in the world. My grandparents lived in a small town in Colorado. They never locked their doors. They did not fear attack or burglary. They just thought they were safe because they knew everyone in town, and most of their neighbors did the same. I used to think that was insane. I locked doors whenever I could. In the library in Wisconsin, I built barricades for the doors. On the farm, I locked the doors every night. When I was somewhere I could not lock doors, I would turn into the world’s lightest sleeper. The confused sigh of a mouse having an existential crisis would have woken me. That night, though—I don’t know. Chalk it up to being too used to being alone, I guess. I slept, and slept hard.

  I suppose that’s why waking up to a shotgun in my face shook me so hard.

  A pair of men, neither physically imposing, were in the living room of the house. They were dressed simply in jeans and worn flannels over dirty white tees. One had a Houston Astros ball cap. The other was had long, dirty hair. The one with the shotgun said something in Spanish when he knew I was awake. “Levanta les manos!”

  I do not speak Spanish. I had a basic introduction to it when I was in junior high, but I did not pay a lot of attention. Luckily, I was able to interpret based on context and my knowledge of Mystery Science Theater 3000. I knew “manos” meant hands, as in the classic MST3K episode where they watched “Manos: Hands of Fate”—easily one of the top five worst movies of all-time. When someone jabs a gun in your face and says something about hands, usually they want you to raise your hands and don’t move. I assume “levanta” means something akin to “put up” or “raise.” I slowly raised my hands, too shocked and stunned to see other living people to do anything but comply. Besides, I was flat on my back on a couch. I was not about to Jason Bourne the situation; I’m not that kind of guy.

  The guy with the shotgun gestured with the barrel for me to sit up. I did, keeping my hands straight up in the air. The other guy was rooting through my ruck of supplies. He pocketed my ammunition and took my shotgun for himself. The two armed men gestured for me to walk to the door of the house. I started to, but I stopped. What was the Spanish word for horse? Vaquero? No, that was…cowboy? Cab-something, wasn’t it? I moved toward the door cursing myself for not taking Spanish class more seriously. Caballo? That sounded right. How could I make a sentence?

  “Caballo!” I said. I pointed toward the garage. How do I say “release my horse?” Libre? “Libre mis caballo, por favor!”

  The two men froze. The one holding me in his sights said, “Habla Espanol?”

  I shook my head. I could not say I spoke Spanish, in all honestly. “Habla Engles?” I asked.

  The two men looked at each other. One shook his head. The one who took my gun went to the garage. He said something to his friend. I recognized the word for horse. He went to the garage doors and opened one, giving Hera free access to the world. He shooed her outside. She did not run, but rather regarded him curiously.

  The one with the gun on me said something that I interpreted as “get walking.” I walked out the front door, stomach tight and head spinning. Strangely enough, I was not scared. I did not feel like these two were going to shoot me. I mean, they certainly could have. They had me dead-to-rights. I never would have even known it. There would have been a flash of sound and then nothingness. I would not even have known I was I dead. The two Latino men were jittery and worried-looking. I think they were as scared of the future as I was, and they were worried about their things being stolen. Maybe they were alone in this world, too. I know how I felt when I found someone else besides me. It was a shock. Granted, it was a joyful shock to me, but a shock nonetheless.

  I let them walk me out of the house and into the street. Hera still stood in the yard. She looked confused, too. The men took up points on either side of me. One led the way down the street in the dark, the other followed me, shotgun trained on the small of my back. He stayed back several steps to make sure I couldn’t spin around and ninja the gun away from him. (Not that I could have, anyway.)

  We walked several blocks in silence. The moonlight illuminated the suburban street well enough that we could see every detail, all the overgrown lawns, all the dead, abandoned cars along the sides of the road and in the driveways, all the damage to the siding of the houses. We stopped in front of a large, three-story McMansion. I could see the faint glow of lights inside. Someone else was in there.

  The men led me to the front door, and they knocked on it. After a moment, the door opened and a teenage girl was standing there. She saw me and her jaw dropped open in shock. It took her a second to recover, and then she said something in Spanish. One of the men replied. I felt the barrel of the gun poke me in the small of the back. I moved forward, following the first man. They led me to a small bedroom and shoved me into it. The door closed. There was no exterior lock on the bedroom, but I knew they were armed and probably did not want me deciding to leave.

  I sat on the bed in the corner of the room and waited. I was nervous. What was going on? Who were these men and what did they want? And, of course, my thoughts drifted to Ren and the baby. I needed to get back to them. I needed to see her again. I needed to hold that baby. I can’t explain it, but I felt a change in my fundamental make-up right then. Maybe it was a reorganization of my perspectives. At that moment, I knew what I needed to do. It only took me a split second to decide, but I knew that whatever I had to do to get back to Ren, I would do. Even if that meant having to kill someone.

  I am not a killer. It took me two years to actually hunt an animal for food in this
post-apocalyptic world. I still have nightmares about the day I had to kill a cow because it was suffering. However, I also knew that I had someone who depended on me as much as I depended on her. I knew that there were no rules in this new world. Kidnapping was not a crime any longer. Those who held the guns made the rules, and the rules were always changing. I would play nice as long as I had to until I saw an opening, and then I would either make a break or kill anyone who stood in my way. I did not want to kill someone, but I would do what must be done. I just hoped it would not come to that.

  I waited in silence. A single candle burned on a wax-covered candle holder on an end table next to the twin-size bed. The bed was dirty. The sheets needed to be washed. I looked out the window of the bedroom. I could see a fire burning in the backyard. At least three people were gathered around it, and though the screen I could hear the muffled sound of conversational Spanish. It was far too fast for me to know what they were talking about, but I didn’t think they were discussing baseball. I heard the word “gringo” once. That had to be me.

  Eventually, the door to the room opened. A woman came in with a paper plate of food and a can of pineapple Fanta. She smiled at me, and held out the plate. It looked like an enchilada. I took it from her. “Gracias.” The woman smiled and nodded at me, and then backed out of the room. Not knowing what else to do, I ate the enchilada. It was delicious. I could have happily eaten a dozen more.

  The next time the door opened, the man with the shotgun was there. He wasn’t pointing the gun at me, though. He motioned for me to exit the room. He led me downstairs and into the backyard. Gathered around the fire were five people: the two men who found me, the teenage girl, the older woman, and an older man with a salt-and-pepper beard. All were Latino, but they did not look related. They all had varying skin color shades and facial features. They were dressed in shabby clothes, but they looked well-fed, like they were surviving all right.