Alice turned to Rebecca sitting beside her on the bed. “So I guess you and I are taking the bus out of here tomorrow?”
Rebecca nodded. “Damn right. I think you guys are nuts for trying to walk home.”
“Randi?” Alice said. “You haven’t said anything. I’m assuming you’re going with us, too? Are the girls sticking together?”
Randi was standing in the patio door, smoking a cigarette and blowing her smoke outside. She was slow to respond, appearing to think it over.
“No offense, Alice, but I think I’m going with the guys.”
“Really?” Rebecca asked, clearly shocked.
“Oh hell yeah,” Randi said. “I would go nuts sitting around a shelter worrying about my grandkids. At least this way I’m doing something. And like they said, I’ll be in control.”
“I think you’re crazy, too,” Rebecca said bluntly, staring at Randi.
“Well, I think you’re a fucking snarky bitch and I’ve about had all of your condescending attitude that I’m going to take,” Randi replied without hesitation. “You’ve never shown me the first bit of respect in all the years that I’ve known you and I’m over it. You open your mouth to me again and I’m going to slap your damn soul right out of it.”
It was so damned funny I nearly spat chocolate cake out my nose.
“Let’s not argue, ladies,” Alice said, quickly intervening. “There’s too much going on for us to waste time fighting with each other.”
Rebecca was staring at Randi. Randi stared back amused. I had no doubt that Randi would slap the shit out of Rebecca without hesitation if Rebecca opened her mouth again. Rebecca seemed to realize this also.
“Randi, we’ll be glad to have you,” I said. “We’ll need to do some planning tonight to get ourselves ready. We’ll also need to consolidate your luggage down to something easier to carry.”
She sighed. “You mean leave the expensive, heavy shit behind, right? Like shampoo?”
I nodded.
“I don’t have luggage, Randi,” Alice said. “Anything you want to leave in your bag, you can give me to me and I’ll take it with me. I’ll get it back to you whenever we get back to work.”
“That’ll work,” Randi said. “Thanks.”
*
After the sun began to set later that evening, there was a lot of noise and yelling coming through the open patio door. Music blared from a car stereo, and I was glad that I wasn’t outside. It sounded like trouble was brewing. Since there was no law tonight and they would be forced to move on tomorrow, this night would likely present a good opportunity for folks intent on getting into trouble.
Gary and I sat on the floor, Randi beside us. Despite my recommendation that they not do so, Rebecca and Alice had taken a walk. They were determined to find some type of restroom facility, or at least a more private bush than the one the desk clerk had pointed them to earlier. Their desire to stay out late was probably driven by my warning to stay in. What the hell did I know, right?
“Is your bug out bag fully stocked?” I asked Gary.
“Yes, it is. I built it off the list you gave me so it should be mostly like yours, with a few personal variations.”
“What the hell is a bug out bag?” Randi asked. “Ya’ll got to speak English around me.”
“A bug out bag is basically a survival kit for an event where you might have to get the hell out of dodge.” I answered. “Mine, and I guess Gary’s, are primarily designed to get us back home in the event of an emergency. Some people refer to it as a Get Home Bag.”
She stared at me. “You take that damn thing everywhere you go?”
“Not everywhere,” I replied. “Just if I travel any distance from home. There are a lot of people out there, me included, who have felt that it was just a matter of time until some shit hits the fan scenario took place and that we needed to be better prepared.”
“Are you, like, some doomsday survivalists or something?” She was not the least bit accusing or condescending, just curious. She leaned forward and whispered. “Are you guys in a militia, too?”
“No, we’re not in a militia,” Gary chuckled. “Jim and I just started talking about this at the same time. It was after Hurricane Katrina. I never thought that people in our country could just be abandoned like that for days to fend for themselves. When I saw the footage of those people in that convention center, I swore I would never be one of them. Jim and I talked about it at lunch every day. We started reading books, following websites, and found there were a lot of people like us who felt the same way.”
“Ya’ll care if I smoke?” Randi asked.
We both shook our heads.
“Anyway, we both carry about the same basic items with a few extras thrown in. We have some food, water, a means of shelter, a way to start fire, and spare clothes. We also carry at least one firearm and spare ammo,” I said. “Tonight, I’m going to repack my bag and get things ready for tomorrow. I’m also going to do a little recon through the hotel and see if I can pick up anything that might help with our journey.”
“I didn’t bring any of the kind of stuff you guys brought,” she said. “I just brought girl shit. Plus a pocketknife. My daddy always said a girl should have a knife.”
“Your daddy was right,” I said.
“How am I going to carry my stuff?” Randi asked. “Any ideas?”
“I thought about that earlier,” Gary said, getting up and taking a pillow from the bed. “I thought we could make a drawstring pack out of a pillowcase.”
Gary dumped the pillow out of the case. He drew a Kershaw folding knife from his pocket and put a slit in the wide hem near the opening of the pillow case.
“Hand me some cord,” he said.
I pulled out a roll of 550 paracord from my pack and started to cut some off but had trouble making myself do it. I looked around the room and saw the cord hanging from the blinds on the patio door. I decided to use it instead and save mine for later. I drew the blinds to the position that left the most slack in the cord, and then cut it free. That left me with about fifteen feet of strong white cord about the same diameter as the paracord. I handed it to Gary.
Gary threaded the cord through the hem of the pillowcase, creating a drawstring closure. At the bottom corners of the pillowcase, he tied knots in the case. He then took the excess string from the drawstring, halved it, and tied the end of each half around the knotted ends of the pillowcase, creating shoulder straps. This would allow the pillowcase to be worn on the back in roughly the manner of a backpack.
“Take this,” Gary said. “Put what you need in there from your luggage. Be very selective, because we’ve got a long way to go and this will not be comfortable with a lot of weight in it.”
Randi stared at the pack. “What should I bring?”
“Another pair or two of your thickest socks, comfortable underwear, an extra pair of pants, an extra shirt, any jacket or raincoat you might have, maybe any extra lighters. Just the bare minimum pretty much. And wear your most comfortable walking shoes,” I instructed.
Randi threw her suitcase on the bed, opened it, and started sorting.
“I’m going to do a quick inventory,” Gary said. “I need to get my pack arranged in a more usable manner if I’m going to start living out of it. A lot of the items I have in here are still in store packaging and I’m going to get rid of that if I don’t need it. I also want to get my ammo more accessible.”
I went to my own pack, opened it, and removed an LED flashlight that hadn’t cost more than a buck. “I’m going to do a quick recon,” I said. “There may be useful stuff here in the hotel. Normally I don’t approve of stealing and looting but times are desperate and if I find some extra snacks or something that may help us get home I’m going to take them.”
“Understood,” Gary said. “I wouldn’t mention it to Rebecca and Alice. They already think you’re some kind of deviant.”
“Let them think that,” I laughed. “I don’t give a shit.”
&n
bsp; “I think they also know that you don’t give a shit,” Gary replied, grinning.
I slung my pack on my back and headed for the door. “I’ll be back in a few.”
“Be careful,” Randi warned.
I entered the quickly darkening hallway. The reek of human waste in the humid air was getting worse. This hotel would need some serious work when this disaster was over. I made my way down the hall to the stairs. My plan was to start my search for supplemental supplies on the upper floors because they had fewer guests. Since the elevators were not working, the desk clerk was putting everyone on the lower floors. The stairs were dark and smelled as fragrant as the hallway.
I climbed to the sixth floor and exited into the hallway. The floor was bright enough that I could move in the hallway without my flashlight but only because there were no obstacles. It was dead still. I guessed from the layout of my floor where the vending room was located so I made my way there and through the metal door. I turned on my flashlight and discovered the same machines I’d seen on my floor – two drink machines and a snack machine. With no power, the machines were useless. No lights glowed. No compressors hummed. The drink machines were heavy duty with massive padlocks on them. They were designed to be vandal-resistant and would be impenetrable, but the snack machine was a different story.
I dropped my pack to the floor and removed my Gerber LMF knife. It had a sharpened steel pommel that was designed so that a chopper pilot could use it to hack his way out of a helicopter by cracking the plastic shell of his windshield. I gripped the knife by the sheathed handle and rammed the pommel into the Plexiglas window of the snack machine, cracking it instantly. The noise was loud in the tiny room and I hoped there was no one on the floor to hear it. A few more blows and a piece fell free, creating an opening that I could reach through to remove snacks from the corkscrew holders inside. I hesitated and listened for a moment to see if anyone might have heard me but there was no sound.
I avoided the bulky, nutritionally-deficient foods such as chips and pretzels and focused on taking the more calorie-dense snacks. I took all the candy bars and energy bars, the bagged nuts, and the snack crackers topped with cheese or peanut butter. There was a whole row of beef jerky and I cleaned that out. I ended up with about three dozen snacks which I crammed into the various side pockets of my pack so they would be easily accessible tomorrow.
Carrying my pack by the straps, I exited the room and walked across the hall to the housekeeping closet. I turned the handle and it opened. These doors were intended to be locked but rarely were in any hotel. Inside was the housekeeping cart for this floor, as well as floor to ceiling shelves of the various items needed for restocking a guest room after it was vacated. On one shelf, I saw a box of the large garbage bags that were attached to the cart. The maids used these bags to contain all the smaller bags that they removed from the rooms. I tore off about a dozen of these, rolled them up, and stuck them inside my pack. They could be used for sitting or laying on wet ground, for constructing a shelter, as a raincoat, or maybe even as a sleeping bag if the situation required.
I took two extra rolls of toilet paper. I had some in my bag but I hadn’t planned on travelling this far and with extra people, more may be required. We would likely reach a point where leaves were needed for the task at hand, but I would enjoy the luxury of good ole TP for as long as I could. I also picked up a few bars of soap and stuck them in a side pocket. Staying clean and sanitary on the trail helped prevent stomach bugs. I found a box of the smaller garbage bags that were used in the guest rooms and I took a dozen of those, too. I could use them to wrap items, like the toilet paper, to keep them dry if we got rained on and my pack got soaked.
Finally, I noticed a stack of blankets on a shelf. These were the blankets you usually found in the closet in a hotel room in case you got cold at night. I took three of them, laid them on the floor, and rolled them into a tight roll about the size of a sleeping bag. I took a piece of cord from my pack and wrapped the roll to keep it from coming loose. I took one more of the big garbage bags and shoved the roll of blankets inside. I would attach them to the bottom of my pack later. They would be more comfortable over the coming weeks than using the emergency Mylar blankets I had in my bug out bag. No matter how warm wrapping yourself in a Mylar may be, it would never be as cozy as a blanket.
I shouldered my pack and tucked the roll of blankets under my arm, slipped out of the housekeeping closet, and paused in the hallway. There was no sound. I made my way back to the stairwell, cracked the door and listened. It was quiet. I entered the stairwell and descended to the next floor. At the fifth floor, I opened the door and listened. Quiet here, too. I walked from one end of the floor to the next and heard nothing. I slipped into the vending room and checked out the machine. It was untouched. My pack was not big to begin with, not much more than an overnight pack, and with the addition of the items from my luggage it was pretty full already. With the TP and snacks, I had started having to cram things in.
I knew from backpacking that you burn a lot of calories hiking. With the snacks I’d relieved from the upstairs machine, and with the items I already had in my pack, there might be enough for all of us for a couple of days. Assuming Gary had food also, the additional supplies might add a few more days to our stock, but there was no way to know what resupply opportunities would be available. There might not even be any resupply opportunities. It would be best to take food when it was available. I decided I’d better crack open this machine, too. When it was done, I put the contents in one of the small plastic garbage bags to see if Gary could fit it in his pack.
Before exiting the room I listened at the door. Nothing. I put my pack on, tucked the rolled blankets under an arm and carried the garbage bag of snacks in my hand. I walked the carpeted floor to the stairway door and reached to open it. Before my hand touched the pull handle, the door burst open, nearly hitting me. I backed away, startled, my free hand dropping to my weapon.
“Whoa,” I said, partially out of surprise, partially to make the person pushing the door aware that I was here.
The guy opening the door was startled too and muttered a curse. I stepped farther back, wanting to keep my distance until I knew who I was dealing with. Had someone heard the noise? Was it hotel staff? Another guest?
Three men came strolling through the door, close enough that I could smell beer on them. I kept my hand on the grip of my pistol, ready to draw it if I needed to. I nodded at the men. They looked at my pack and the load in my hands, then moved on down the hall, trying doors and talking in Spanish. They obviously had no more business here than I did. One of them turned and looked back at me again. Before they could decide I was a target, I was through the door and headed back to my floor.
I reached the room without seeing another person, although I heard more voices coming from rooms when I got to my floor. I knocked on our door. “It’s Jim,” I said in a low voice.
I heard steps and Randi opened the door. When I went in, I could see through the patio door that the sun had dropped below the horizon and it was nearly dark now.
“Are they back?” I asked.
“We’re here,” Alice said from the dark depths of the room.
“I’m glad,” I said honestly. “It looked like it was getting a little sketchy out there.”
“More than a little,” Rebecca said. “If I have to pee again, I’m going on that patio there. There’s no way I’d go back out there.”
“We saw a brutal fight,” Alice said. “I don’t know what started it but there were a lot of people standing around watching. One guy was down on the ground, his face all bloody, and he was getting pounded and kicked some big guy. I think they may have killed him.”
“You guys didn’t try to intervene?” I asked. “I know how you like to mediate other people’s conflicts.”
“Well, fuck you,” Rebecca said. “We didn’t. This is not the kind of climate where you try to mediate anything.”
“I’m glad you’re fina
lly realizing that, Rebecca. That’s our new world for a while.”
“When we were coming back two men followed us,” Alice said. “They were talking shit and making comments. We got scared and ran. They laughed at us, but didn’t follow.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Gary said. “But remember it and don’t put yourselves in a situation again where you are defenseless.”
“I won’t,” Rebecca said.
“I won’t either,” Alice added. “I am looking forward to the safety of some type of government-operated shelter.”
“I hope it is safer,” I said.
Rebecca moaned. “Let’s not revisit that.”
“We won’t,” I said. “The time for arguing is over.”
I walked across the room and gave Gary the plastic bag of snacks. “Got room for this?”
“I do,” he said. He tucked it away in his pack without opening it, although I’m sure he could tell what it was through the thin garbage bag.
I dropped my own pack and loosened the straps on the bottom. When they were loose, I used them to attach the blanket roll to the bottom of my pack.
“What time are you guys leaving?” Alice asked.
I looked at Gary. He shrugged, which I took to mean he hadn’t really thought about it.
“I would like to be out of here about 5 a.m.,” I said. “There’s a reason police make raids at that time of day. The lowlifes are usually out cold by that time and you still have a little darkness to conceal your movement. I would like to leave without anyone knowing we’re leaving or wondering what we have in our packs. I don’t want any confrontations or questions.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Gary said.
“The sooner we’re out of here, the better,” Randi piped up.
“How about we go ahead and sack out,” I suggested. “I’ll set an alarm for 4:45 a.m. and we’ll head out then.”
The Borrowed World: A Novel of Post-Apocalyptic Collapse Page 12
