The Borrowed World: A Novel of Post-Apocalyptic Collapse (13 page)

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.”

“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 finally 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.”

“In case you don’t wake up when we leave in the morning, I wish you ladies good luck,” Gary said, addressing Rebecca and Alice.

“Thanks, Gary,” Alice replied.  “I hope you guys get home safely, too.”

We all settled in for the night – the women in the beds, Gary and I on blankets on the floor.  We left the patio door open for fresh air.  Outside music still blared.  Hispanic rap trying to drown out AC/DC.  A woman could be heard crying in the parking lot below our window.  A baby cried beyond that.

“Could you slide that door closed?” Randi asked in the darkness.  “I don’t think I can sleep listening to that.”

I slid the door closed without a word, sealing out the night.

The night was restless and uncomfortable, but somehow we were all asleep when my alarm went off the next morning.  I quickly silenced it and the three of us wordlessly threw off our blankets, slipped on our shoes and gathered our stuff.  Gary and I used our headlamps to make sure we didn’t miss anything.  I gave Randi the backup flashlight from my bag.  I had a couple of them in there and I told her to hang onto it in case she needed it later.

Alice and Rebecca stirred while we packed and we said a few perfunctory good-byes, each of us distracted by the unknowns that lay ahead of us.  Once we were all packed and had our gear on, we exited the room, quietly closing the door behind us.  We had agreed in the room to maintain strict silence until we were clear of our little interstate community.  It was also agreed that I would take the lead until we were clear of town.  I removed my headlamp and showed Gary how to carry it with the lens pointing into your hand, just opening your fingers enough to allow sufficient light to escape to where you directed it to.  By this method, you could conceal most of the brightness of your light but still see where you needed to go.  Randi followed suit and we headed single-file down the hall and into the stairway, shutting the stairwell door as quietly as possible and starting down the stairs.

When we exited the stairwell near the lobby, I noticed that the lobby was full of people sleeping on the furniture and stretched out on the floor.  This was clearly one of the bottom tier rooming plans that the desk clerk had mentioned to us.  Despite the unpleasantness of our dark room and the stinking hallway, I was sure it was much quieter and safer than this lobby.  I didn’t want to walk through that group of people and take a chance on waking someone.  I held out my hand to stop Gary and Randi, then motioned for them to follow.  I changed direction and headed down the first floor hallway and away from the lobby.  At the end of the hall, we exited to the parking lot, pushing the panic bar on the glass and aluminum door as gently as possible to avoid making unnecessary noise. 

Once free of the building, I breathed a sigh of relief.  The air was cool, the early morning quiet.  The sky had started to lighten at the horizon.  We need to be gone before full light.  When I went on backpacking trips, I always awoke to a sensation similar to this – a mixture of relaxation, mild adrenaline, and anticipation.  This time, however, it was not about the journey, as those backpacking trips were.  This was all about the destination.  I was anxious to get this show on the road and get home to my family.  It was amazing what we’d been through in just twenty-four hours.  It felt like a week ago that that those terrorist attacks had occurred.  I hadn’t received a text back from my family and now my phone was probably dead.  I would charge it later with the solar charger from my pack and try again.

We were on the northwest side of the interstate.  I pointed toward the highway, to the south, and started walking through the parking lot to the back of the hotel.  I could tell that Gary and Randi had expected me to use the access road leading to the hotel, but it was clear to me that there were still too many people in their vehicles.  I didn’t want to rouse any suspicion or have anyone see where we were going.  I didn’t want to be questioned or followed.  Maybe I was just paranoid, but I preferred to think of it as operational security.  I also remembered the old saying that you’re not paranoid if people really
are
out to get you.

In my bug out bag, I carried a Virginia Gazetteer, which is a large booklet containing topographic maps of the entire state.  Since most of my work travel was within the boundaries of Virginia I had always believed that if the shit were to hit the fan when I was on the road odds are it would be on a Virginia road.  I also carried a highway map of the southeastern United States that was not as detailed but would point me in the right general direction to get me back to my own state.  I even took the trouble of plotting return routes and carrying maps for family vacations with the kids. My goal was never to be caught unprepared and without a plan to get home. 

We’ve already established that I’m paranoid.

I had a compass, too, but I also went one degree better.  Two years ago I had bought a new GPS for my backpacking trips.  It was a top of the line Garmin with a color touch screen.  When I bought it, I retired my old Garmin Etrex to my bug out bag.  It was still a good, functional unit and I’d preloaded it with topo maps for the western half of the state, which is all the older unit’s memory would hold.  As long as the GPS satellites were still functioning, and I had no reason to think they weren’t, this unit could be invaluable.  I also had spare lithium batteries for it, which were both lighter than alkaline and longer lasting.

Passing through the back lots of the hotel and adjacent buildings we made it to the interstate without meeting another person.  At the edge of the right-of-way, we climbed a chain-link safety fence, crossed the four lanes of I-81, climbed another fence, and took stock of our surroundings.  Since the businesses were all located on the north side of the highway, there were only a few stray cars here on this side.  I could not see any people or any movement.  We walked down the shoulder through tall grass and weeds at an angle that would eventually intersect the side road at a point past any parked vehicles.  The dampness of the grass and weeds soaked our pants legs.  My shoes remained dry since they were good quality Salomon hiking boots.  I suspected that Gary was wearing hiking boots of a similar quality.  I knew, however, that Randi’s running shoes had to be getting soaked.  When the sun heated up later, it would probably dry out our pants and Randi’s shoes.  Hopefully it would be before blisters consumed her feet.  We stayed in the weeds until we were completely out of sight of the road, then we stepped down onto the pavement and began walking on the flat road surface.

The road apparently did not lead into any town, and there had been no roadblock of any sort on this side of the interstate.  There would be houses and maybe even businesses here, so we would have to remain alert to the possibility of encountering other people.  There could also be other travelers, some potentially threatening.  It felt strange to be telling myself that I had to consider anyone we encountered as a potential threat, but was that not the world we were now in?  How could I make it home thinking any other way? 

Randi lit up a cigarette.

“You need to quit those things,” I said.

She looked at me, thinking about her response.  It was clear that she was similar to me in that she had a visible reaction to people telling her what to do.  She thought before responding, though, seeing that I was not attacking her but just being my normal blunt self. 

“I’ll have to in a day or so anyway,” she said.  “I’ve only got one more pack left.  This first one of the day is important.”

I smiled to myself.  “Wake and bake, huh?”

She laughed.  “That’s weed, not cigarettes,  And without coffee, I need to take what vices I can get.”

“Don’t get me started on coffee,” I said.  “I miss it too.”

“Now that we can talk,” Gary said, “what’s the plan?  How the hell are we getting home?”

“I’ve literally thought about this for years.  I think safety and security has to be our first concern,” I said.  “It’s too dangerous to just take the easy route down the interstate.  I think we need to take a discreet route with minimal exposure to towns and people.  Since we travel to Richmond so often, I established a get home plan from there years back.  It involved using the Appalachian Trail.”

Gary thought about it, nodding.  “I can see the logic in it.  It avoids population centers and nearly takes us all the way to Tazewell County.  That’s only twenty miles from home for me.”

“It’s about thirty-five miles from my home,” I said.  “That’s still relatively close.”“Isn’t that trail rough?” Randi asked, a little apprehension in her voice.  “Up and down mountains, muddy, sleeping in the woods kind of stuff?”

“Yes,” I said.  “I’ve hiked large sections of it and it is challenging but I think it’s our safest route.”

“How far are we from the AT now?” Gary asked.

“Around six miles.”

“That close?  I had no idea.”

“Yes,” I said.  “It parallels the Blue Ridge Parkway not far from here.  We can be there by lunchtime.”

“We can walk six miles in a day?” Randi asked doubtfully.  “I ain’t never walked six miles in my life.”

“Fifteen is a good average day for me,” I said.  “I’ve hiked that and longer with a 45 pound pack many times.  By the time we get home, you’ll be able to do a twenty or more mile day if you want to.  Especially if you’re not smoking cigarettes.”

Randi made a snorting sound like she didn’t believe me.

“You can do it, Randi.  But if you’re having second thoughts we’re still close enough to the hotel that you can go back.  I’m not trying to run you off, I just want to make sure you know what you’re getting in to.  The options are trust the government or bust your ass to get home.  That’s the long and the short of it.”

She finished her smoke and flipped the butt to the pavement, stepping on it.  “First off, I will bitch, moan, whine, and complain but I will fucking well make it.  Ain’t nothing you guys can do that I can’t, short of peeing standing up.  Second, if I have to travel with those women I will go off and hurt someone.  No doubt about it, they are not my kind of people.”

“I think we can all make it, too, but not on the food we’ve got,” Gary said.  “We’ll have to resupply somewhere along the way.  I’ve got some Clif bars and some dehydrated meals, but it’s probably only three days’ worth.  Then I guess there’s whatever was in that bag you gave me last night, the origin of which I shall not ask about.”

“I confess,” I said.  “I busted open the candy machines and we probably have about fifty packs of candy bars, jerky, nuts, and crackers between us.”

“You damn delinquent!” Randi teased.  “What would Alice say?”

“I know,” I admitted.  “In my pack, I’ve got a Gatorade bottle of rice and one of beans.  I’ve also got a Ziploc baggie with a couple of boxed macaroni dinners and a few dehydrated meals in it.  Not enough to get us home.”

“Sorry, guys – I got nothing,” Randi said.

“Don’t worry about it, Randi,” Gary said.   “Not everyone is as paranoid as we are.”

“In light of current circumstances, I would no longer refer to you as paranoid but instead as just prepared,” Randi said.

“So we’ve maybe got a week’s worth of meals?” Gary said.

“I’ve got a potential resupply point in mind,” I said.  “My best friend from high school, Lloyd Earhart, lives about an hour’s drive from here.”

“Or a four-day walk at thirteen miles a day,” Randi added sarcastically.

“Yep, about that long,” I said.  “He runs a barber shop in a small town just off the AT.  He’s also the mayor.”

“The mayor?” Gary asked.

“Yep, think about it.  You’ve got a small town of about two hundred fifty people.  Who knows more people than the barber?   He’s been mayor there for nearly twenty years, usually running unopposed.  He listens to people bitch all day long so he’s on top of the issues.”

“You think we can resupply there?”

“I’m pretty sure,” I said.  “He kind of lives in the past anyway.  I’m sure he’s probably holed up in the old building he lives in, sipping moonshine and playing the banjo.  He doesn’t really care much for the modern electronic age.  He probably has a friend with a store who will help us out.”

“What’s the name of the town where he lives?” Randi asked.

“Crawfish.”

“What about water?” Gary asked.  “How are you set for water?”

“I have six bottles left from my original stash in my pack.  I picked up another six from the food tent yesterday when we ate.  That’s actually way more water than I prefer to carry. I also have purification tablets and my Katadyn Camper pump filter.”

“That’s good,” Gary said.  “I’ve got four big bottles of spring water and some purification tabs.  With your filter we should be in good shape all the way home.”

“What’s a pump filter?” Randi asked.

“I use it for backpacking.  It allows you to pump water out of lakes, streams, and springs and filter it clean enough to drink.  I even used it several times on Roan Mountain in Tennessee to suck water out of puddles during a dry summer hike when a lot of the springs were dried up,” I said.

“You drank puddle water?” Randi asked, turning up her nose.

“Yes, I did.  And I liked it.”

“How did it taste?”“Like rotten leaves,” I said.  “In case you ever get the chance to drink water filtered from Whitetop Laurel Creek in Damascus, Virginia, that’s the best creek I’ve ever tasted.  The leaf water was probably the worst.”

“All this talk of food and water is making me hungry,” Gary said.  “I’m used to fueling up first thing in the morning.  Any objection to stopping to divvy up some candy bars and water?”

“None at all,” I said.  “Let’s do it.”

We were sitting on the shoulder of the road sucking down water and eating candy bars when I heard the sound of some type of engine in the distance.  I finished my second Snickers bar and wiped my hands on my pants.  I threw the wrapper on the ground.  After I did, I stared at it for a minute and thought about how I had always adhered to Leave No Trace ethics in the woods and made my kids carry out every piece of trash they made.  I picked it back up and shoved it in my pocket.  I could burn it later in a campfire.