Viral Survival

by Pete Thorsen

  “I’ll think about and then we will have to talk about it more and then think about it more. You are right that it truly is a life or death decision. And I do agree the move would be better this spring rather than a couple years from now when fuel would be an issue.”

  Chapter 14

  We talked off and on almost every day for more than two weeks about whether to move or stay. When we were not talking about moving we were both thinking about it. We looked at Minnesota maps and maps of other states. We both knew that we had all winter to decide because nothing could be done until the snow all melted anyway.

  I actually think that it was closer to a month before we made a decision that both of us were comfortable with. The decision (which surprised me) was to stay in Minnesota but move to another house if we could find one that suited our needs. I was the one that wanted to move south but through our discussions I ended up changing my mind.

  There were many reasons. The big thing was safety from violence. Many survivors of the Fever would think exactly like me and head to more southern states. This could be a good thing or a bad thing. But only the hardy would stay up here in Minnesota and there would certainly be fewer people up here than farther south. Obviously, many that were here would either flee south this winter or die from the freezing temps or from starvation or from a lack of water.

  By spring anyone left alive would likely see the allure of fleeing to the south and would likely leave as soon as the roads melted enough for travel. It made sense. Life would be easier where the temperatures were not at the extremes they were here. That is just a simple fact. But there were almost the same reasons to stay.

  If most left here and we stayed, the remaining resources in this area would be split between fewer people. In the warmer areas of the nation it would be just the opposite situation with more people fighting for the fewer remaining resources still available. Whether we moved somewhere far to the south or just moved a few miles to a new location here we might not have time to grow a garden this year. So either grow a garden or scavenge more food. There would be much to do either way.

  No matter where we moved we accepted the fact that any house we picked would very likely contain the bodies of the former owners that would have to be removed and buried. That was just a fact after most of the population died from the Fever. Bea only said that any bed in any house we moved to would have to be replaced whether it was empty when we got there or not.

  After we took all the time to make the decision, once it was made we made a big list of what we wanted for our new dream house. The list was pretty long and, like anytime you set out looking for a house, you know up front that you will have to compromise on some of the stuff on your wish list, but maybe not so much on your list of must have’s.

  I preferred to find a house on a lake but would accept a house on a good, larger river. I like to fish and having a steady supply of fresh meat stored in the water next to your house could make a big difference now. So this was a must have. At the same time we would have to make sure the house near the water had no chance of being flooded. That could be deadly in our situation now so we would have to carefully study the land around the house we picked.

  Also, there had to be both woods and open areas nearby so I could hunt a variety of birds and animals. Wherever we moved to, hunting would still be our main supply of meat (though supplemented with fish). It is what we would need to survive. Though here in Minnesota you could basically hunt anywhere for deer and rabbits and such. But again this is still a must have item.

  Next we needed an area suitable to plant a large garden. There could be no way to get around this requirement. A large garden would be needed just to keep us alive. Another must have.

  The house had to be piped for a propane gas kitchen stove at least and also had to have a chimney suitable for a woodstove. No way around these two requirements. And finally, no lift pump on the sewer system. We needed a house with a gravity drain sewer system for obvious reasons.

  Those were the big things we thought of and after that we made a list of desired (but not necessarily required) things. These would just be things that would be nice to have but would not necessarily directly effect our survival.

  Things like; all on one floor with no stairs. An attached two car or larger garage, and a couple of out buildings for storage. A full dry basement. A metal roof that would last for decades instead of shingles that would need replacing at some point. An open area around the house to protect it from any wildfire (though that could be arranged). At least two bedrooms in case there was an addition to our household at some point. With rock or brick or cement or stucco construction for the outside walls for long lasting durability. And many more things that would be nice but not a requirement for us to live there or not.

  This list was started fairly early in the winter and grew to considerable size by the time the snow started melting. Throughout the long winter I would go and start each of our vehicles on the occasional, warmer day. So when the snow had melted enough that we could safely drive on the roads we left home one morning to start our search for a new dream house.

  The area around where we lived contained many, many lakes. That was our starting point. No need to start the search a hundred miles away when something much closer could possibly be found that would fit all of our needs. So we drove around each of the surrounding lakes, giving each house a thorough look as I circled the truck around each of them. I drove slowly and we seldom stopped at a house. We did this every day and after the third day we started wondering just how long this search would take us.

  Then it struck us as funny that we were already complaining that the search was taking too long and it had only been three days. Like we had something better to do anyway. And this search for our new home was so vitally important. So we kept looking.

  On the fifth day we found one that was very promising. It was on a lake and was a ranch style with a walkout basement and a metal roof. You had to walk down a hill in back to get to the lake but that was certainly acceptable and would mean basically no chance of flooding. It had a masonry chimney that would work for a woodstove though no stove was installed right now. And it had the required propane kitchen range installed. It was a three-bedroom house with a very large detached garage/shop/storage building. There was plenty of room for a garden in a few areas near the house.

  We carefully marked it on our detailed map so we could easily find it again. It actually looked almost perfect but we both decided that we needed to keep looking because this decision was so important. So we continued the search again.

  Three days later we were tired of looking and I drove back to the one we both thought was perfect. It even had a boathouse down by the lake. There was a large flat area near the lake and another one up near the house that would be big enough for a large garden in either spot. While the house was full of personal items (and even a fair amount of food) there were no dead bodies inside, which was a very pleasant surprise indeed. After looking it over we thought the house was likely a weekend escape house for some rather wealthy individual likely from the Twin Cities.

  It had its own shallow well located inside the basement. I don’t think this was even legal but it sure would be great for us with the situation we found ourselves in now. We could use a generator with the attached electric pump and we could always take that electric pump off and install a hand pump that would still provide clean water for us—though it wouldn’t be “running” water.

  I was very concerned about the pipes being frozen and having burst inside the walls but I found that everything had been drained before winter (I think it had actually been drained two winters ago—before the Fever).

  We decided this house would be our new home. Now the real work would begin. We would have to clean this place completely before moving all of our stuff over here.

  We would also have to till up an area for a garden and plant it as soon as it was warm enough. We would also need to move a couple more propane tanks to th
e house, plumb them in, and fill them with propane before next winter. We would then have to search all the surrounding area for wood piles and move countless loads of firewood over to our new house, along with a sturdy woodstove that did not require electricity to operate.

  There were actually many things we would have to get from town and bring to this new house also. At some point we would no longer be able to drive any vehicles when the fuel went bad (though I think diesel fuel stayed good for a very long time (or at least I hoped)) but we needed to plan for that eventual day.

  We needed to search for food anywhere that still seemed viable and bring it all back to our new house. This would bolster what we still had while making sure the now extremely valuable food in the surrounding area never went to waste. Though we would plant a garden and both Bea and I were familiar with growing gardens here in Minnesota any food still around in the nearby homes and businesses would have to be gathered and brought back here.

  Besides not wanting the food to go to waste, having it here could likely save our very lives if our garden did not pan out very well, which is something that could always happen to anyone.

  The list of what needed to be done was long indeed and we both just sighed and started working.

  Chapter 15

  Our first step was to bring a generator to the new house and double check that the well was good and the pipes were still good after winter. So I went to a rental place and got the smallest diesel powered generator that they had and brought that and several gas cans full of diesel fuel to the new house.

  The temps would still fall below freezing every night but I was pretty sure the pipes inside the house would not freeze before the next winter set in. So I hooked everything up and, with the generator running, I primed the electric pump in the basement. It started pumping right away and we let the water run with the outside spigots wide open for several minutes to clear out the well. Then we opened all the faucets in the house and let them run into the drains.

  I also ran a garden hose from the gas water heater drain outside and flushed that out as well. Everything seemed fine and we shut off all the faucets and spigots and let the pump build up its pressure then shut off. Then we waited to see if we could hear water still running anyplace or if the pump lost pressure and started up again, which would mean a leak. Luckily everything checked out fine and we were in business, at least in the water department in the house.

  We had brought cleaning supplies with us and cleaned the house top to bottom over the next few days while still staying in our original home at night. During that time we also removed most of the existing furniture and all of the last owners’ personal items. Once all of that was done we began moving our stuff into our new home.

  Some of the furniture we put into this place (like two of our beds) we decided to get “new.” We only brought a couple pieces of our old furniture over and instead stopped at some furniture stores for new, heavy duty pieces of furniture that would last our lifetimes. On one of the countless trips back and forth between the two houses (they were less than twenty miles apart) I brought over the big propane delivery truck which I refilled on the way so it could fill the tank at our new house.

  We spent many days in town going through stores there. Most of the food was either gone or ruined at this point. A few food items were still available like cooking oil, flour, sugar, spices, some condiments, and such. We brought many things from town to our new place, including all the toilet paper and paper towels we could find. Those were something we could not make but could be stored up in the attic of the big garage so they really did not take up any valuable storage space.

  One item was a new tiller which I used to till two garden areas. One was up near the house and one was down closer to the lake. We brought many bags of manure home from a garden store and I tilled all of it into the garden plot soil to enrich it before we planted. I made the two garden plots very big so either would be large enough to supply all our garden needs (hopefully) for a whole year. But I wanted options and the gas still worked in the tiller so now was the time to make the large gardens in both of those spots at our new place.

  It was still too cold to plant anything yet but we were getting ready and still had plenty of other things that needed to be done. We found many garden seeds in some of the stores in town and some of the houses we checked and brought all those seeds home. We were living at the new house at this point and everything we were keeping from our old place had been moved here.

  I took the time to drain all the water from the water lines in our old house so the freezing temps would not ruin that house this coming winter. I was quite sure that most of the homes in the northern areas of the nation were basically ruined now due the pipes being full of water, freezing, and bursting over the last winter.

  While searching stores in town we brought back many, many books on every topic we could find. We also brought back many fiction books just for entertainment during the long winter months ahead. We certainly had no time to read now though.

  In the many trips to town we never saw a single soul. Bea wondered about that.

  “What happened to all the people that were living here?”

  “They left I’m sure. If they were still here when the power went off they would have had no choice except to leave. They would have no water and no sewer. You could not live in a town without power. There are plenty of vehicles for them to choose from and there is gas at the stations—or it could have been siphoned out of cars so it would have been easy to just drive away.”

  “Where would they all go?”

  “Anywhere actually. They would have the whole nation to choose from. I would think maybe some went to find out if relatives near or far were still alive. Some might have gone looking for locations that still had electric power which I think would have been a logical choice. Hydroelectric power plants at dams around the nation are very likely still producing power and will for a long time even without people to monitor them. Life would certainly be easier with electric power.

  “Some people might even have chosen to go to one of the coasts to find a sailboat and sail around the world maybe. If I knew anything about the ocean I would have suggested that we do that. Just think what a wonderful and carefree life that could be.”

  “I never even gave that a thought. Wouldn’t it be great to just sail down to the Caribbean Islands and be where it is always warm? Or maybe out to Hawaii. I would think that GPS units would still work because all those satellites would still be circling the earth. Anyone could find their way with those.”

  “Many people know how to fly planes and could have flown anywhere they wanted. They would be as free as the birds. They could fly south in the fall and north in the spring. Live the life of enjoying the best of both of those areas. There are so many options for people.

  “Anyone who wanted could drive a motorhome and have all the comforts of home while they traveled. Or even park it and live in it when they found a nice spot somewhere.”

  “Why didn’t we do that?”

  “We still can. We can do anything you would like. I love you and you know I would do anything for you.”

  “I do like our new house but maybe we should get a motorhome and bring it close by and park it. It would be available then if we ever wanted to take a little vacation at some point.”

  “That is actually a very good idea. That one place just down the road has a big garage with an extra tall door that is made for a motorhome. We could park it in there. Who knows, maybe one is already parked in there for us to use.”

  “We have so many options that I never thought about. We can do almost anything.”

  “It would be nice to find a little sailboat that we could use on our lake. That would be fun and we wouldn’t need gas to run it.”

  “That does sound like fun.”

  While many things sounded like fun, even simple things like just walking down to our dock and fishing from the end of it, there was also so much work needing to be don
e that we had little time for anything else. We needed to grow a garden to provide the food we needed just to survive. And while we still had the mobility and hauling capacity of running trucks we needed to store as many supplies as we could still scavenge from the general area as close as possible.

  As soon as it was warm enough we planted a big garden. Actually, we planted two medium sized gardens instead by using both the upper one and the lower one that I had prepared. That way we could see this first year which might work out better for us. This also split our hopes of a big harvest into two spots so we did not have all of our eggs in one basket. We both knew that the lower garden would always face some danger from possible flooding that could ruin the whole thing for a season.

  The upper garden we would be watering using the house well and the generator. With the lower one we would use water pumped right from the lake using a small RV type pump and three big solar panels mounted on the boat house to run it.

  I had removed all the solar panels from a house we saw a couple miles from our new place. We had also noticed a few other houses in the general area with solar panels and made note on one of our maps so we could go back to them and get the panels later. Solar panels had a finite lifespan. Leaving them in place unused was a waste. Better to take them and put them to use at our house or store them so they would not deteriorate from exposure to the sun.

  When we ran out of viable fuel we would no longer have any electric power without some solar panels. We were just too busy right now to do everything we wanted to, so that was why we made notes and would could get back to those tasks later.

  The solar setup with the RV pump worked really well and on one of the trips to town I got three more of those new pumps to have on hand. They were small and I wondered just how long they would last using them the way we were. We had brought home so much stuff at this point that we were storing stuff in the garages at two of the places next door to ours. We had removed the cars parked in those garages so each had a lot of open room inside, which we utilized to the full extent.