Survivors (4 page)

We took a break and Blaine led us to the
two wings of the house. There were a total of eight
guestrooms, each with their own private bathroom,
more than enough for our little group. We agreed
to meet downstairs in the kitchen at five o’clock,
and Blaine said he would take care of the dinner
arrangements.

Chapter 4

Each of my fellow survivors took a separate
bedroom, and we decided to have the two boys
share a room with twin beds with Mary and Margaret staying in the next rooms. We arranged a sleeping area for little Carla on a twin bed in Janet’s
room and surrounded the bed with tall chairs to
ensure Carla wouldn’t fall out during the night.

I was too tired to lie down on the bed. I
knew if I did, I’d be asleep in a minute. Instead, I
walked down to the main floor and found Blaine
busy in the kitchen. “I found two tenderloins in the
freezer and thawed them in the microwave. I figured we might as well use them up. At least we can
all eat like royalty for one night.”

“Can I help?” I asked.
“Sure, why don’t you fix the salad? I think
we still have some good lettuce in the fridge.”
As I was cutting up the lettuce I asked, “Tell
me about yourself.”
Blaine snorted. “Me, I’m a loser.”
Needless to say, I was surprised by his response. “What do you mean?”

“This is my parent’s home. I normally live in
Manhattan; I run a hedge fund up there. My father
made a fortune in the commodities market. He
wanted me to follow in his footsteps, but I didn’t
want to work for him. From then on I was a loser
in his eyes, and he told me so in those exact
words. I’m taking care of their house until they get
back from Europe, but I guess that’s not going to
happen. I talked to them about six weeks ago, just
as this all started. They were stranded in Paris,
and even with all his money, he still couldn’t find a
way to leave.”

“You know Blaine, I think we’re all going to
find out money can’t buy anything anymore. My
wife had an insurance policy; I’m not going to collect on that. How am I going to access the money
in my checking and savings accounts? And even if
I could get it, what good would it do. You know we
could probably get into Fort Knox and steal all the
gold, but what would that get us?”

Mary showed up with Carla who was demanding some formula. I held the little girl while
Mary prepared Carla’s dinner. Mary said, “I’ll find
Carla a crib tomorrow. There’s an upscale baby
store over on Fifth Avenue.”

Mary sat down out on the lanai and fed
Carla her bottle. The little girl was guzzling the liquid like there was no tomorrow.

Others began to arrive, and we set up dinner on the lanai. Stan offered to cook the tenderloins on the barbeque. Blaine explained a large
propane tank buried in the ground still powered
the stove and barbeque. Blaine walked into a large
walk-in closet off the kitchen and returned with
four bottles of wine. I looked at the labels. Gaja
Barbarosa, I recognized the brand and knew each
bottle of the excellent Italian wine was worth well
over $200.

The dinner was special. We were all eating
together and enjoying the wine. I guess we were all
trying to move on from the personal loses and horrors we had all experienced in the last few weeks.
Margaret stood up and gave a toast. “In the Jewish
religion when we toast we say
l’chaim
; it means
to
life
. So, let me toast my new family with the simple
words
l’chaim
.”

We all raised our glasses and said
l’chaim
.

Jack and Bobby clicked their glasses of apple juice together and half the juice spilled on the
table. Everyone laughed, so Jack and Bobby did it
again, and the rest wound up dripping onto the
Travertine pavers. Nobody seemed to care.

By the time we finished dinner, we had
gone through six bottles of the wonderful wine.
Stan asked how much each bottle cost, and when
Blain said $300, he almost choked.

I said, “Listen everyone, why don’t we go
around the table and tell everyone about ourselves.
We need to know what each of us can do. We all
have skills we’re going to need if we’re going to survive. I’ll start.”

Margaret stopped me. “Wait, I’m going to
write down everyone’s skills. I’ll prepare a spreadsheet, and when we need a skill we’ll know who to
talk to.”

Margaret returned a few minutes later, and
I began. “I grew up in Chicago and studied Business Administration at Northwestern University. I
had a good friend in college. Bruce was an engineer, and he had an idea for a new way to injection
mold those plastic cups you see all over. Anyway,
we started a company, and it was an instant success. We sold out a couple of years ago and moved
down to Naples. I lost my wife and daughter in the
plague. I don’t have a lot of skills. I know how to
manage a business, and I think I know how to
work with others to make things happen.”
It was Mary’s turn. “I grew up in Fort Myers. I studied at Florida State University; I’m a Registered Nurse. I used to work at Naples Community
Hospital, first as a Scrub Nurse and then in Orthopedics. I retired two years ago and did volunteer
work at the free clinic over on Livingston Road. My
husband Ralph died two years ago from cancer. We
never had any children. Up until today, I’ve been
all alone.”

Margaret began, “I’m just a good librarian. I
grew up in Naples and started working at the main
library. I worked my way up and finally managed
the branch over on Orange Blossom Road. When
we lived in a house, I was a good gardener, but
when we moved over to Venetian Village, my gardening days were over. My husband died from the
plague, and I don’t know what happened to our
two children and grandchildren. I guess they all
passed away.”

Ruth seemed embarrassed. I guess it was
due to her young age. “I go to the Community
School. Well no, I guess I don’t go there anymore.
Both my parents died near the beginning. My dad
made a business trip to New York, and I think he
caught it up there. I don’t have any skills yet. I’m
too young.”

Janet interrupted Ruth. “Nonsense Ruth;
I’ve seen you do pencil sketches; you’re a very good
artist. You’re able to capture the emotion of a scene with just a few lines on a piece of paper.”

Ruth blushed, “I guess I can draw pretty
good.”
“What about you Janet?” I asked.

“I’m a retired school teacher. My husband
and I just moved down from Minneapolis last year.
I got my degree from the University of Minnesota.
George died seven weeks ago in the hospital. They
didn’t know what happened to his body. I never
had a chance to say goodbye. There was so much
confusion there. It was horrid. They just had dead
bodies lined up in a garden behind the hospital;
just stacked up, one on top of the other; can you
imagine that.”

Janet began to cry. Ruth put her arms
around her new friend and just held her for all she
was worth.

George continued on. “I’m an electrical engineer. I worked for a solenoid company for twenty
years and then moved down here to manage a design team working on miniature transformers.
Marge, that’s my wife, passed away three weeks
ago. I had to carry her down sixteen floors, but I
knew she would have wanted to be buried looking
at the beach and the ocean. She loved to walk
along the beach each morning looking for shells.”

It was Stan’s turn. “I don’t have any degree,
but I worked in construction, mostly new developments, and ten years ago I began doing major rehabs. I buy a beat-up property in a good neighborhood, fix it up, and sell it for a profit. I’ve made a
lot of money; not that it’s going to do any good
now. Oh, and I love to fish. I’ve got a boat on the
river over by the Naples Airport, so if we need some
fresh fish for dinner, I’m your man.”

I asked Stan, “There’s a fishing fleet over at
Fort Myers Beach. Do you think you could operate
one of those boats?”

“Sure, but I’d need a crew, and I’m not sure
how long the diesel fuel would last, but I can go
over there and scout things out.”

It was Bill’s turn. I’m a mechanical engineer
by training. I got my degree at the University of Miami, but I haven’t used the degree in forty years. I
own ABC Paver Company, maybe you heard of us.
We specialize in commercial projects. I guess we
won’t need that skill for another hundred years.”

“You’re right Bill,” I said, “but we will need
your mechanical engineering skills. I think you
should be studying your old textbooks again.”

We moved onto Jessie. “I’m studying genetic
engineering at Duke. I’m a Senior there. I was going to specialize in bio-pharma manufacturing processes. I interned last summer at Amgen, and they
said they were going to offer me a job after graduation. My parents and younger brother died a few
weeks ago.”

Blaine was the last to speak and after identifying himself as a loser, I wondered what he
would tell the others. “I received a degree in economics at Princeton. I manage a hedge fund in
Manhattan. I guess that job’s on hold for a long
time. Other than knowing how to make money
trading foreign currencies, I know how to fly an
airplane. Mine’s parked over at the Naples airport.”

I asked Blaine, “What kind of plane is it?”

“It’s a twin-engine Cessna Turbo Skylane.
On a full tank it has a range of 1360 nautical
miles.”

Jack, who was listening to the conversation
said, “Can I fly on the airplane?”

Bobby immediately said, “Me too, me too.”
Blaine was smart enough to answer the
question with no definitive answer. “We’ll see guys.
I’ll know better in a few more weeks.”

Both Jack and Bobby accepted this answer
with no complaints. How many years before that
would end? Margaret and Mary decided it was time
for the two boys and Carla to get some sleep. There
were no disagreements from the boys; they just
left.

I asked Blaine, “Do you think we can use
your plane to search for survivors?”

Blaine considered the question with a long
silence. He was clearly thinking. “The Cessna isn’t
really good for a search. If we find someone, we’re
going to want to communicate with them. I’d want
to be able to land the plane on a road near them.
There’s a real small Piper Cub that would be ideal,
and it’s just sitting at the Naples Airport. Tomorrow Mary, Ruth, and I can search for survivors in a
car, and then we’ll check the airport in the afternoon.”

By nine o’clock everyone was ready for a
good night’s sleep. It had been a stressful day, and
we all had a lot of things to accomplish tomorrow. I
was thankful Jessie had pulled me out of my selfimposed funk. My fellow survivors were a very interesting group.

Falling asleep without my bottle of bourbon
wasn’t easy. I had memories to deal with, terrible
memories of death, of loved ones, and the end of
civilization as I knew it; and if I finally fell asleep,
the nightmares would come quickly, terrible
dreams of Gloria and Sarah delirious and dying in
my arms.

To prevent the nightmares I tried to think of
nice memories: growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, playing with my friends at school, my wedding, standing at the side of my wife as she gave
birth to our daughter. I hoped the good memories
would displace the dreams of demons and other
ugly creatures of the underworld trying to destroy
my life. I guess that was why I had taken the bourbon, hoping it would blur the realities of the last
few weeks. I finally fell asleep thinking of Sarah
and watching her score the winning goal at a
neighborhood soccer game.

Chapter 5
The nuclear submarine USS Jimmy Carter

The Seawolf class submarine left its home
port of Bangor, in Washington State, just two days
before the first reported case of the pandemic. The
crew of 143 reached station one week later under
the polar icecap 150 miles north of the Arctic Circle near the northern coast of Greenland.

They had been receiving routine coded
messages from their home base via military satellite. Initially, the messages had focused on the
usual military communications necessary to conduct covert undersea operations. The messages
changed seven weeks into their mission. At first
there were warnings of a severe epidemic; then the
word pandemic became the norm. Nine weeks after
leaving their home base all of the communications
focused on the global catastrophe. They were into
their thirteenth week at sea when communications
began to deteriorate, and by the fourteenth week,
communications with all United States military
bases around the world had ceased.

Lieutenant Bob Farrell, the ship’s Communication Officer, had been keeping the fifteen officers up to date, and the crew was receiving the horrifying news via the grapevine. Captain Edward
Sanchez had finally heard enough. He called a
meeting of his officers.

Captain Sanchez turned to his Communications Officer for an update. “What’s the status
Bob? Is there any good news? I want a detailed
summary of what’s happened since all this began.”

Farrell looked down at his notes. “Let me
start with some good news. We’ve been able to
monitor some sporadic communications on the
short-wave band; a total of three distinct frequencies in the United States and two more in Europe.
They appear to be from small groups of survivors,
so at least we’re not the only ones who are alive.

“All military communications have ceased.
I’ve tried everything. I’ve run tests, and our equipment is operating within acceptable limits. I’ve run
some tests on our communications satellites, and
they’re fully functional. The bottom line is nada,
absolutely nothing to indicate our military or for
that matter any military in the world is able to
communicate.”

Sanchez then turned to the ship’s Medical
Officer. “Doc, what the hell happened?”

Doctor Raymond Fleming cleared his
throat. “Before communications went to hell in a
hand basket, I was in contact with the experts
back in Bangor. They were in constant contact
with the CDC. Let me tell you the facts, and then
I’ll give you my take on what’s happened.