Tales of the Derry Plague , Anselmo, Ray [fun to read txt] 📗

Medicine – see 9.

Defense –

3. Find books on roughing it/survival (or print off internet?).

4. Find other needed things – stockpile.

4a. Pull from SBN&N first. *

Need to toss refrig. foods or use b4 lights go out

Sort produce

Use frozen foods – toss 24 hrs. after elec. gone

4b. Then house to house?

Food preservation? (Canning, dehydration?)

4c. Check Green Gulch Farm before houses?

5. Wash clothes esp. fire suit while you have use of washer/dryer. *

6. Find way to secure bldgs for future use/scavenging.

7. Make list of poss. places to go if new location needed or to find others.

8. Read LaSheba’s journal, esp. last week’s entries.

8a. Start journaling?

9. Raid pharmacies (see list).

She’d make sure to wash her current clothing, used dishrags and the fire suit tonight before going to bed, but otherwise 5. was taken care of for now. Worse came to worse, she could wash clothes in the Pacific and dry them on the rocks or set up a clothesline. 1. was more or less done as well, but she’d check it in a few days to make absolutely sure. She added a note:

1a. Make a marker for pyre?

It felt right to do, even if it might be busy work. She’d fit it in when she fit it in. There was no rush since she was the only mourner, but maybe someday someone, human or alien, would find it and know they’d been there. So what looked like it should be tackled first?

“Everything that needs electricity,” she said. That meant cooking and other food prep, water, and the internet. She tore another sheet off the pad and started brainstorming.

Everything in fridge/freezer at Matchicks – prepare so it will keep *

Fridge at SBN&N – dump all into dumpster *

Frozen, produce at SBN&N – prepare all you can

Kinds of food prep:

Cook until dry

Dehydrate

Canning Salting

Spicing

Water – take all bottles from store *

Fill all empty bottles

How much ¼ tsp bleach/gallon to keep pure, 1 tbsp per gallon to sanitize

Fill bathtub(s) *

Supplement w/bottled juice/soda for drinking

Alcohol?

Internet – what do you need to print? **

Last items on plague – might figure something out

How to build fire

How to preserve food

Basic first aid?

Maps?

How to siphon gasoline

Basic survival skills

Lots of heavy duty flashlights/batteries

Actually, batteries in general sounded good. So did a watch, for when she couldn’t use her phone anymore – preferably an automatic or mechanical one, so she wouldn’t have to worry about a battery for it. She wrote those down and looked the list over. “Hmmm … I might actually get pretty good at this survivalist thing.” So long as she didn’t have to fight off roving gangs – she was no General Furiosa or whatever her name was.

At the least, she had ideas on what she could and couldn’t do on short notice. Canning would probably be too much work with too big a learning curve for too little result. She’d never liked drinking alcohol, but it might be useful for first aid, washing out cuts and the like. The ‘Net had answered the bleach question. Everything else would keep her rather busy for a few days minimum, busier still once the power grid belly-flopped.

“All right … first, the store. That’s likely to take all afternoon. The evening I can spend cooking.”

Back to the car. Back to SBN&N. Open the gate to the fence around the dumpster, unlock the container and flip open the lid – ugh! She hadn’t recalled that the garbage company wouldn’t have picked it up for over two weeks. “Woof!” she cried as she dove for the back door, unlocked it and scrambled inside. Yuck – this wouldn’t make the day any more fun. The first thing she did after getting the reek out of her nose was to find a face mask and squirt lemon juice onto it before putting it on.

Once properly protected with mask and plastic gloves, she got a shopping cart and began loading all the meat from the refrigerated section into it. The prepackaged cheese might still be good – she’d check – but the plastic wrapped cuts of beef and chicken and the like were goners after going untouched for at least a week and a half. It took a few trips to get them all to the Bog of Eternal Stench she now mentally referred to the dumpster as, but it wasn’t too difficult. And it was kind of fun to Frisbee the packets into the container.

Next, she cleaned out the tiny deli counter, followed by going through the prepackaged items. Most of the latter were fine for now. Vegetables were another story – the vast majority of them were spoiled or close, and had to get them to the Bog quickly before they contaminated the rest. Same with softer fruits, about half of the citrus and any fruit in plastic bags. The apples that weren’t bagged were largely recoverable, provided she sliced and dried them quickly. Which made it all the more urgent that she find a dehydrator.

Since she had a couple hours of daylight to go, she decided to take a trip up to Holy Green, where – sure enough! – they had some big dehydrators for all the organic produce they sold. Better still, they had a gas-powered generator, so she could use the machines after the power failed. Should I start right away?” she wondered, then, “Yeah, why not? Other than not really knowing what I’m doing, what’s there to stop me?”

She caught herself, took a deep breath, held it, heeeeeeeld it … let it out slowly. There was being enthusiastic, and there was slipping into a manic episode. And that always led to a crash, and a deep depression. Balance – they key was balance. She’d just come out