A Distant Eden (7 page)

The second step was to distill the water. While the river was crystal clear, it could still retain harmful materials, items either dissolved or just too small to see. Normal distilling required a lot of heat, and that meant burning a lot of wood. That required burning a lot of calories collecting and burning the wood. Roman had a better idea: a solar still. It would not require any more energy than the sun shining and very little human effort.

He dug a shallow and wide hole, which he lined with plastic sheeting. Roman had two large rolls of 6 mil, clear, plastic sheeting that he had purchased because the stuff was always handy. Once lined, a clean bucket was set in the middle of the hole on top of the plastic. The filtered water was poured into the hole with the plastic acting as a large bowl. To keep the bucket from floating, Roman put a weight inside.

Roman placed another sheet of plastic over the top of the hole and drew it almost tight. This plastic was allowed to sag an inch in the middle. He weighted the edges of the top plastic with rocks and dirt for an airtight seal. He placed a small rock on top of the plastic directly over the bucket, causing the sheet to droop in a shallow cone shape with the low point over the bucket. The hole had been located in an area that received sunlight all day.

As the sun heated the water between the layers of plastic, the water evaporated, leaving behind minerals and metals. The upper sheet blocked the evaporated water, where it condensed into droplets that, following the slope of the plastic, reached the low point where the rock held it down and dripped into the pot. It could take a single hot day, or up to three or four cool days to evaporate and condense into the pot. Because of the slowness of it, Roman set up multiple stills. By tending them every day, they had a constant supply of filtered and distilled water.

There was yet a third step to follow. Roman wasn’t one hundred percent sure that the water did not contain some biological agent that could cause sickness. While evaporated water wouldn’t normally carry biological contaminants, the low temperature of the evaporation still system, and the fact that contaminated water was close to and sealed up inside with the collection bucket, meant to Roman that bacteria could still get into the drinking water. Carefully collecting the water and putting it into mason jars, he then pasteurized it to kill any stray biological contamination. Using the cardboard and aluminum foil solar stills whenever the sun was out, the water could be brought to 160 degrees for six minutes—that would do it. The solar stills would bring a quart of water to that temperature in a couple of hours; it took tending, but it was a quick routine. Pure clean drinking water was an absolute survival essential.

Cooking water didn’t have to be pasteurized. The heat of cooking would do the same thing. Washing water could also skip the pasteurization process because it was used with soap and not internally consumed.

After taking care of the water situation, Roman cut some of the bamboo growing on his creek bank and made fish traps. Years before, Roman had purchased a bamboo-splitting tool. It was cast iron and looked like a small wagon wheel. This tool quickly and efficiently turned a bamboo stalk into eight narrow strips suitable for many purposes, especially basket weaving. The fish trap was a form of basket. It was shaped like a large minnow trap; two inverted cones allowed a fish easy access, but made it difficult to swim back out. It was a full day’s work for Roman and Sarah to make nine of them.

Roman wasn’t sure how many it would take to feed two people, but he wanted to have enough. He tied the bamboo strips together with reinforcing steel tie wire, of which he had several rolls because, once again, it was always coming in handy. In the future though, when he had more time, he would take a sharp knife and cut thin strips of bamboo “bark,” soak it in water until soft and use that.

They also made two turtle traps. These were like the fish traps but with larger openings. He only made two because he wasn’t certain how much turtle they would be willing to eat, not having any experience with it. If it turned out that more traps were needed, more traps could be made.

They placed the fish traps, which were baited with mussels they dug up and broke open with rocks, completely underwater in places where the fish would be channeled towards them. The turtle traps were placed near logs where turtles sunned themselves, with the trap tops partially out of the water so that any trapped the turtles could get air. These too were baited with smashed mussels.

After the first day, Roman pulled out all but four fish traps. Four traps provided enough fish for Sarah and him; he was still putting fish back. He put up the turtle traps because they were full of turtles. He kept one turtle to start with. After cleaning and cooking it, he decided that unless they became really tired of fish, he would save the turtle population for later days.

On the fourth day, Roman was getting some reception on his truck radio—not much, but enough to tell him the solar storm was passing on by. He unwrapped his ham radio, and installed the antenna up in a tree—not easy for a sixty-year-old-man. Living down in the river bottom, radio reception wasn’t great, so the antenna had to be as high up as possible. He began hearing broadcasts from many places around the world. As usual, just as they had during disasters like WWII, the ham network provided the best worldwide communication system. Ham operators have provided emergency communications, quietly and heroically, after disasters since before WWII, yet the public almost never heard about them.

The news he heard was almost as if he had written it himself. The entire world’s electrical systems were down and weren’t coming back. Communication by satellite was a thing of the past. Those orbiting pieces of extraordinary machinery had become inert lumps of metal. The astronauts in the space station were in communication—those were some of the saddest conversations Roman had ever heard. They were showing signs of radiation sickness. Being out in space, their bodies were riddled with radiation and they were rapidly dying.

Food riots and mass starvation were the stories. Panic reigned in every city. Roman stopped listening to the general radio traffic. The news was predictable, there was nothing he could do about it, and it used battery time. While he could have talked to others, transmitting used up battery power—power he wasn’t about to waste just to talk. Roman had a solar panel battery charger, but it was slow. Instead, he turned on the receiver every night at 9pm and listened on the designated frequency for thirty minutes. He also made three short transmissions, letting any listeners know he was on the air.

On the sixth night he heard Jerry checking in. Roman quickly responded with Sarah listening. As they held hands, a rush of relief washed through them. Roman hadn’t realized how tense he had been, waiting to see if there would be contact. They quickly established where they were and what they were doing and how everyone was. Then to save batteries they both agreed to check in each night with a quick acknowledgement unless there were important things to say. Roman asked when they were leaving town. They explained about the sick children, and that it would be at least a month. Sarah was devastated.

After talking with Sarah a few minutes they made regretful farewells until tomorrow. Roman shut down the radio. Now he just had to worry about Adrian. But Adrian didn’t create much worry in Roman. Roman knew that Adrian was more than capable of taking care of himself; and since he didn’t have a family to worry about, Adrian would be fine. Sooner or later he would show up, healthy and fit.

The next important thing that Roman did was removing the stored food from the root cellar and burying it in multiple locations. Roman had calculated that about five million people would leave, or try to leave, the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex once they understood the food situation. He had estimated that they would leave in equal numbers, mostly towards the southern one hundred-eighty degrees of a circle. He didn’t think too many would head north in the winter. Most of them would walk, taking the highways out of town. Once out of town most of them would leave the highways because there would be too many people on them for anyone to reasonably believe they were going to find any food. Or be able to keep it if they did. There would be stalled eighteen-wheelers loaded with food on the roads that would become magnets for armed gangs. That food would be quickly removed and carried off to hiding places. When that food was gone, and it would go quickly, there would be nothing left anywhere near the highways.

So some four and a half million people would head out across country; roughly two hundred and twenty-five thousand people per degree of semi-circle. Given that they would spread out as they got further from town, Roman’s calculations indicated that something on the order of twenty thousand people would be coming his way in two weeks. If only two thousand of them came through his immediate area, and they all came through in a one-month time frame, then he would be looking at seventy people a day hunting food near him. Those were just average numbers though. He might go days without seeing anyone, or several hundred might show up together. Roman knew that there was no way to fight off those kinds of numbers of starving people. There was no way to feed them, either.

His best thoughts on strategy were to hide the food where it wouldn’t be found, and take to the brush until the walking starving were gone. They would take one look and him and his wife and see healthy people, which would mean they had food. Roman would not be able to hide that fact. Starving people who knew he had food somewhere would turn vicious. Torture was a real possibility. His house would draw them, as they would naturally look inside it for food, along with every other house they came to. So Roman made his current priority hiding the food.

Once the food was hidden, he began doing the same with his tools and equipment and anything that he was going to need in the future. He didn’t think starving people would take off with an anvil, but by the same token it only took a few minutes to bury it right there in the yard so he did, along with everything else of utilitarian value. He also made the house appear abandoned and recently looted, so as to ward off any raiders.

He made preparations for him and Sarah to walk into the bamboo behind the house and disappear. He pre-positioned guns, ammo, food, tents, sleeping bags, extra clothes, radio and batteries, and everything else that they might need. It was tedious work. All the items had to be thoroughly weather proofed and buried in places no one would find. He made a map to the location of each item, using symbols that only he and his wife could interpret. Then he made two copies of the map and buried them in spread out locations. Roman wasn’t planning on losing anything.

His preparations were barely completed, he thought well in advance, when they came into play. Roman had been thinking of the large cities; he hadn’t been thinking about the small towns that were closer. Upon later reflection, he realized they would go through the same transformations as the cities. Their food chains were just as fragile, but they were closer and those walkers started showing up sooner. Those thoughts would come later though. Right now, he saw four men armed with rifles and shotguns approaching down the road. He had only seconds to act.

Jerry called a family meeting.

“OK, here is what Dave and I have come up with. We think we should stay here until the kids are healthy enough to walk all night cross-country. We think that could be six to eight weeks out. During that time, we’ll all be getting exercise, which we need. We’re hoping there will be decent weather when we’re ready to leave. We’ll also use this time to prepare and organize.

“In the meantime, it looks like the safest place to set up camp is down in the crawlspace under the house. I know, I know. It sounds disgusting and filthy and you’re wondering why. Hear me out before you object.”

Jerry then went on to explain the positives and the negatives of living under the house. Everyone listened closely and by the end of his arguments they were persuaded that he had thought this through carefully and that all of his points were valid. There was a brief discussion and then they all headed to bed, scattered out around the house in various rooms—helping to make one of Jerry’s points that they couldn’t afford to be separated in an emergency, it would take too long and be too difficult to communicate effectively under those conditions.

The next morning Jerry and Dave took up their rifles and four buckets along with rope, a machete and a shovel. They were going to the creek to make their first water run. While they were gone, the women would excavate two slit trenches in the backyard bushes for sanitation purposes.

Jerry and Dave left just before the sun crested the horizon. They wanted the cover of darkness but they also needed enough light to see by; this was not familiar terrain. After the route was established, they could traverse it in the dark. They chose a route through the field behind Jerry’s property. The field could be seen from some of the two story houses, so they carefully worked their way to the creek using the natural cover presented by the brush and trees. When they had to walk across an open place, they did so as casually as if they were just out for a stroll. They did not want to draw attention by acting suspicious. It was a careful balancing act between skulking along behind the brush and strolling through the open, and they felt a little bit silly.

The creek was surrounded by thick brush, but there was a spot that afforded them an easy descent to the water. The creek still had some flow, even in the drought. Since it was winter, there was reason to hope the creek would continue to flow for the time they would remain in town. They did not consider that the large number of other people also taking water from it might reduce the flow.

Jerry and Dave knew that this water couldn’t be consumed without being thoroughly treated. It contained surface runoff and would be full of pollution, not the least of which would be heavy metals and herbicides. Using the machete, they cut two saplings and trimmed them into poles. They tied a jug to the end of each of the poles and putting the poles over their shoulders worked their way back to the house. They did not intend to make this trip again in daylight and sincerely hoped that no one had seen them make this one. When they returned home, they set up a water processing system like Roman’s. They waited until dark to set up the solar evaporation stills, and did so out in the field away from the house in inconspicuous places, but places they could observe from the second story windows. They had no intention of doing anything that would make the house look inhabited; to the contrary, they intended to make the house looked abandoned and looted.