I need food. I’ve lost weight, though I admittedly have more to lose. The concern is that my energy is lagging, and I’m worried about Marcus. He’s naturally a bony little dog, and the lack of real dog food is taking its toll. His ribs and spine are becoming pronounced, and his once shiny black coat is getting dull. I need to get him some real dog food and something more substantial than canned soup for me.
It’s been weeks since I raided the rest of the units in my apartment building, and supplies are running thin. I’d had a nice stockpile of canned goods and dry cereal, but it didn’t last as long as I thought it would. That means I’m going to have to venture out of here. I’ve spent time making my home as safe as I can, and I don’t relish the idea of having to leave its relative safety.
Wait.
Just…..stop.
I’m writing for the first time in weeks, and I guess I’m blatantly ignoring the elephant in the room. I should probably explain why I finally felt the need to pick up the pen again today.
The last few months have been difficult for me. I’ve been incredibly productive and just as incredibly naive. I’ve spent days facing the realities of how dangerous the outside world is, yet I’ve spent almost no time facing the reality of my own guilt. I understand that I was trying to escape any negative feelings I might have felt over my actions. I killed the Twit.
No. Damn it. I have to say it right.
I killed David. That was his name… David Mercer.
I have only just been able to accept that I took the life of another man. I didn’t want to face what I’d done, or why. I know it was an accident, and I wish I could take it all back, but I’m determined to stop beating myself up over it. The guilt isn’t going to keep me alive, it’s not going to feed me or Marcus, and it certainly won’t make everything go back to how it used to be.
As for the last few months, well…..it’s all a blur of hard work and dreamless sleep. I realize now that I chose to fall into routines as a way to cope with the confusion over what happened with David. I slipped away into repetitive tasks so as to focus elsewhere.
No, that’s a lie. If I have to be honest with myself, I have to admit that I wasn’t really focusing at all. I was numb and just going through the motions. There wasn’t a lot of thought going into my daily actions. Sure, I set some minor goals, and I worked toward accomplishing them, but mostly I just had to keep my hands busy and my mind turned off.
To those ends I set about obsessively fortifying my position in the complex. I spent weeks going through all of the other units in my building, all of which were – luckily – empty of the previous residents – both alive and dead. It looks like everyone decided to try and make it off the island before the bridges were closed.
I hope they made it.
After making sure no one else was in the building, I moved into a sparsely furnished corner unit upstairs that had windows on two sides. The previous owner was an Ikea fanatic, so everything felt new and modern and the open space felt somehow comforting whenever I thought about how unsafe it would be to step outside.
I emptied my own apartment of anything I thought would be useful and left the rest figuring I could always reclaim it if needed. Truthfully, I can’t imagine a way in which I’ll ever need my work clothes or xbox again. No reason to move that kind of stuff when it serves no purpose other than to remind me of what has changed.
After I moved upstairs I used some tools I found to cut a hole in the wall. I wanted to open my unit up into the adjoining apartment, so I just cut right through the drywall and removed one of the studs to make an impromptu doorway. This effectively gave me windows facing out at three different compass positions. Now, only my southern view is blocked. I keep the blinds on all the windows drawn at all times, but it is comforting to know I can get an unobstructed view of the outside when I want it.
After getting my apartments setup, I broke apart and used a bunch of the wooden furniture and steel bed frames from the empty apartments to reinforce the glass security doors which were the only ground level entrance into or out of the building. It would be very difficult to come in through the front doors now, though that also means it would be just as difficult to get out.
Just in case, I worked to build a series of traps on the stairs and in the hallway to give me warning if anything came into the building while I was asleep or otherwise unaware. Anyone trying to come upstairs to my corner of the building would be making a lot of noise as I had rigged a series of fire extinguishers to go off, and even had a crate full of glass wear and plates ready to tip over the railing if anyone put any weight on certain steps.
It makes me feel a bit safer, though I continue to be afraid of someone or something coming into the building while I’m sleeping. I know it’s not a rational fear, but I can’t shake it. I wake up often during the night, and haven’t slept for more than 2 or 3 hours in a row in weeks.
After making it difficult to get into the building or up to my apartment without making one hell of a racket, I focused on how I could get out in a hurry if I needed to. However I was going to get out, it had to be quick and easy. Luckily for me, all the upstairs apartments have fire ladders which were installed after one of the other buildings in the complex burned a couple of years back.
A few hours of work putting the ladders at the windows I wanted to use, and I now have available exits at opposite ends of my two apartments. I just hope I can get the chain ladders out the windows without too much fuss or noise when the time comes.
I keep noticing that I’m expecting the worse to happen. Everything has become a “when” instead of an “if”. Is that a survival instinct? Is it paranoia or just the stress and worry talking? Will I always feel this way?
Regardless, I should be able to drop the ladders out and climb down pretty quickly. I’m only 20 feet or so up, and I could probably jump if I really had to, though I’d rather not have to find out if my knees and ankles could handle the fall. The chain fire ladders seem like the best answer for now.
During my scavenging, I’d also collected all the books and magazines I could find. I’d even dragged one of those strength rod all-in-one home gyms up the stairs to help me keep active. I haven’t read a thing or touched the gym since, but they seemed vitally important when I was moving them.
I spent some time creating meticulous lists of all of my available resources in a blue notebook I had, and decided to stockpile all of the remaining food in my second apartment upstairs. I now have a few first aid kits, boxes of band-aids, lots of over the counter pain and cold relievers. I even have a bag of different SPF sunscreens, though I don’t remember why I thought they’d be important enough to grab. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time, though I don’t really remember gathering them all together.
Of better use, I turned the upstairs hallway into an archery range with mattresses stacked up to be the target. I’d spent hours practicing with the compound bow I picked up while inside David’s apartment. I was never going to win an Olympic medal, but I could hit what I aimed at now.
I laughed while writing that last part. No one is ever going to win an Olympic medal again unless the Z’s compete for the slowest 100 yard dash…100 yard creep? Shuffle? Whichever, the Olympics are just another lost part of history now.
Last thing I’d done was to lock up all the other units and nail the doors shut just in case anything came in through the windows. I had effectively secured my living area. It took me almost two months to get it all done. When it was over and I had nothing else to keep my hands busy and my mind idle, panic began to set in. I started to have time to do nothing but think, and alarms started to go off inside my head.
There was only one thing to do. I decided to get rip-roaring drunk.
What followed was one of the longest binge drinking sessions of my life. I went through all the booze I’d found in the building, which was surprisingly substantial. Apparently I’d lived amongst some serious wine and whiskey connoisseurs, and the spoils of my search were enough to keep me drunk for about 8 blurry days.
I drank from the moment I woke until the moment I passed out. I drank everything I had and don’t remember how a drop of it tasted. I drank to be numb, and it worked, if only for few days.
When I finally ran out of hooch, I sobered up to find myself curled around a toilet full to the brim with vomit and urine, and I don’t want to know what I was laying in. Marcus was barking and scratching furiously at the closed bathroom door. I had my sore back wedged against it and I could feel his muted and manic pawing.
I rolled over painfully and opened it only to have him jump all over me, my head aching as tears began to sting my eyes. He was obviously distraught and wouldn’t stop licking my face as I began to cry. I had no idea how long I’d been locked in there, but it was obviously too long for him.
I can’t explain why, but knowing that my little dog was so frantic to get to me cracked open the floodgates I’d worked so hard to ignore. I bawled for what felt like hours until I got all the guilt and fear out of me, and when the last sob quietly escaped my lips, I felt utterly and completely drained. I hadn’t realized that I’d been holding all that tension, just carrying it around locked up inside me for all that time.
Hearing Marcus scratching, barking and howling to get through that door was my tipping point. This wasn’t just about my survival. I know he’s just a dog, but at that moment he was also the only friend I had that was still alive. He was the only part of my old life that hadn’t been taken away.
I picked myself up off that filthy bathroom floor for him. I didn’t just have to take care of myself, I had to take care of him, too. Maybe that wouldn’t be enough for some people. It was exactly enough for me.
I staggered out into the apartment to find it looked like a hurricane had blown through. Furniture, books, clothes and more were spread all over, and it appeared I’d slept and eaten in just about every corner of the place. I ignored it for the moment and moved to the kitchen where I immediately fed and watered Marcus. He got an entire can of beef stew, and ate it in huge, hungry gulps. I leaned against the wall and watched him quietly. He kept looking up, keeping a constant eye on me. When he was done, we headed back to the bathroom to clean up.
I was incredibly hungover, and the reflection in the mirror showed that I’d lost weight over the last few months. My eyes were sunken and my skin didn’t look good. My hands were covered in small cuts and new scars from all the work I’d done. My clothes felt at least one size too big, and my hair and beard were looking shaggy. I needed a bath, a shave and a hair cut. Unfortunately, I was rationing water, so a real bath was out of the question.
I left the mirror behind and headed into the second apartment where I kept all my supplies neatly organized on the bookshelves I’d pulled in from other units. I’d stockpiled a lot of bottled water, filling up just about anything I could before the pipes had dried up. I decided to use one bottle to take a sponge bath, grabbed a new bar of soap, and headed back to the bathroom. I quickly did an about face and headed for the clean bathroom after remembering the sorry state of the toilet I’d been sleeping beside. I’d clean it up, but first I wanted to get myself straightened out. Seeing and smelling that mess would probably make my stomach turn flips. Better to wait a bit.
I went down the hall and turned left into my second bathroom. I rarely used it because of the color palette. It was done up in sea foam blues and greens, and it very much reminded me of my mom’s place in Florida. I’d been staying away from it so as to avoid thinking about her. It’s just one more concern riding around on my shoulders.
I quickly stripped off my dingy clothes and jumped in the tub while Marcus sprawled out on the rug in front of the sink. He wasn’t going to let me out of his sight for a few days. I deserved it, so I reached over and rubbed his ears before settling in to scrub myself clean. I took some time to trim up my beard, though I don’t know if I actually made it look any less ragged. The hair I left alone because I figured it’d be easier to grow it out long and eventually tie it back. It’s not like I can run out to Incredible Cuts any more.
Finally clean, I walked naked to my bedroom and pulled on some jeans and a plain black t-shirt. These were some of the last really clean clothes I owned, the last that had been washed with actual laundry detergent, and they still smelled good. It was a reminder of the old world I once knew, and I’d been saving them, but I was rebounding and needed all the boosts I could find. Clean clothes were right up my alley at that moment.
Marcus looked on over his paws from the bed as I dressed. I could tell he approved. I gave him a smile as I pulled on a pair of socks and his tail began to wag. That’s a good sign and as clear a thumbs-up as he can give.
Cleaned and dressed, I spent the next two hours cleaning up from my excesses, and several more apologizing to Marcus, who I’m sure must have been living in complete confusion and fear the whole time I was drinking. We played fetch in the living room and I think he forgave me, at least a little bit. He even got to have the last of the peanut butter, and that sealed the deal. We were friends again.
I looked up from our play and was surprised to see that the apartment was getting dark. My watch showed that it was only a little after 6PM. I realized that I’d begun living by farmer’s hours; up and to bed with the sun. The power had completely died out shortly after my visit to the Twit’s – to David’s – apartment, and I was saving the few candles I had scavenged from my apartment search. I’d also been trying not to use my flashlight too much because I only had one extra set of batteries.
That meant I did what I could while the sun was up, and I realized that the days were growing shorter as summer ended and fall arrived. October in New York means that it would be completely dark within an hour.
I felt spent and still a bit woozy from the much deserved hangover. I did a quick check of my defenses, finding them all to be as I’d left them before sprinting through all that liquor. I locked up and grabbed this journal as I headed to bed.
I’m using the last bit of light from my window to get all of these events out of my head and onto the page. I think it helps me to deal with it all, to see it written down. It also makes me realize that I’ve gotten a lot done while avoiding my guilt, but it’s time to begin focusing beyond the immediate safety of my home. I’ve had effectively no contact with the outside world for weeks now. Who knows if anyone else is still out there.
Tomorrow, I will begin to make plans to answer that question and start my search for more food. Winter is coming and I need to fill up my stockroom again before snow starts falling. I also need to figure out how I’m going to stay warm.
That’s enough of my worries for now. I need to get some sleep. I’ll write more soon.
Keep safe.
