The World as We Know It Read online

  Cellular phones went next. I was talking with Maria one day when her voice abruptly went silent, and the signal strength icon on my smartphone was at zero. It seemed archaic to have to resort to the old wired phone plugged into the wall. As awkward as it felt, though, I also felt a certain sense of liberation, a freedom from that omnipresent need to be available. Less than two days later, the Internet was out and landlines were dead. The radio said that it was happening everywhere. A lot of places had already lost power. That was when I left work for the last time. It was time to refocus my attention on what we would need for survival once the electricity went out and gas lines went down. December in the Midwest can be brutally cold.

  I began walking home to check on Maria, but my reluctant saunter soon became a run as I noticed angry crowds beginning to form in the streets. I knew then that that was it. There was no coming back. Maria was startled when I burst through the door and broke down crying when she saw me.

  “What’s happening, Joe? I’m so scared,” she sobbed onto my shoulder as I held her tightly.

  “Everything is going to be OK. I promise.”

  So many thoughts were rushing through my head. We needed food. We needed water. Soon we were going to need heat. We needed to secure the house. Where were our friends and family? Were they OK? What was going to happen next?

  First things first.

  “Maria, I need to go get food before there’s nothing left.”

  “Where?”

  “The grocery store.”

  “It’s closed.”

  “I don’t think that matters now.”

  I continued talking as I headed into the bedroom for the Mossberg.

  “Joe! What are you doing with that?”

  “You’re taking it.”

  Maria was shaking as I loaded up the shotgun and forced it into her hands, giving her the briefest firearm tutorial in history just in case anyone tried to get in. Safety off. Point-shoot-rack-repeat. Eight shells in the magazine, one in the chamber. She stayed at the house with the doors bolted, the blinds drawn, and the lights out. Any place that had food was potentially dangerous, and I couldn’t put her at risk. Human laws are ignored in such times of desperation. All that matters is staying alive. I grabbed the Ka-Bar from our bedside, rushed out the door, jumped in my car, and headed quickly to the grocery store with a duffel bag.

  In my haste, I had left my coat, but there was no time to go back. There would be others scrambling for food too, and I didn’t want a fight. The frigid air bit the bare skin on my arms. My breath froze before it even left my mouth, and my dry fingers could hardly grip the slick leather-wrapped steering wheel. It had been raining for days, and the ground was coated in a thick layer of black ice. The engine roared as I slid through the grid of streets, and the antilock brakes grabbed repeatedly but did little to slow me down. The car bounced off curbs and street signs as I sped toward downtown, completely destroying its once flawless metallic beauty.

  I drifted around the last corner, smashing directly into the side of an armored personnel carrier. The National Guard had arrived, and not a moment too soon. It was anarchy. I got out of the car and stood watching in horror with so much adrenaline rushing through me that I couldn’t even feel the cold anymore. The historic center of our little suburban town was engulfed in flames. Brick facades were collapsing onto the sidewalks and streets, and a furious mob was engaged in brutal hand-to-hand combat with the armed forces, who were doing everything in their power to control the chaos without resorting to gunpowder and lead.

  “What are you doing out here?” I heard a voice yell. I spun to find myself looking down the barrel of a military-issue assault rifle in the shaking hands of a terrified kid who looked like he was fresh out of high school. A patch on the breast of his uniform read “Peterson” next to the American flag on his right shoulder. Surely pointing his weapon at fellow Americans was not what Peterson had anticipated when he had signed those enlistment papers.

  “You can put the gun down, Peterson. I’m just getting food for my family.”

  We both glanced over at the half-destroyed grocery store and then back at each other.

  “The liquor aisle is empty,” he said, still pointing the M16 in my face. I wanted to ask if that was where he had just come from while his friends were all down the street brawling with a crazed mob, but I decided that that would not be in my best interest. How ironic that the most powerful government in the world would arm the kid with deadly weapons but wouldn’t trust him with a beer.

  “Food, not liquor,” I said. “For my family.”

  He kept on his glare for a moment until a voice yelled from down the street, “Peterson, get your ass over here!” With that, he left me alone and headed toward the riot. I grabbed the duffel bag and bolted into what was left of the grocery store.

  Peterson had been right about the liquor aisle; it was completely empty. I would guess it was cleared out within twenty-four hours of the store closing. Someone had come through and torn apart that whole section, probably enraged that they had arrived too late and missed the party. The rest of the shelves were pretty stark too, but I filled the bag with as much nutrition as I could, focusing on items that would preserve well.

  Bottled water.

  Canned fruits and vegetables.

  Summer sausage.

  Peanut butter.

  Crackers.

  Nothing frozen or refrigerated. It was cold enough outside to keep those things for the time being, but I had no idea how long the madness would last.

  I wasn’t the only scavenger there, nor was I the only one wearing a white collar, but none of us were interested in interacting. We didn’t make eye contact. The shame was palpable. I was one among a random assortment of people just like me—people I would have met at conventions and seminars. People who had prided themselves on their work ethic, earning everything they owned, we were then reduced to the same primal acts of desperation that we had found utterly despicable not long before. It’s all too easy to judge the poor from a plush couch in an air-conditioned living room. We suddenly filled the shoes of those we used to pity as we had dropped pocket change into their dirty hats outside of Cardinals games.

  I had never thought of myself as a looter. Some years earlier, a hurricane had devastated New Orleans, and I remembered two particular photographs in newspaper articles, both of which depicted men in the exact same position that I was in. One man was white and the other was black, and though they were engaged in the same act, the captions described them quite differently. One was a looter. The other was gathering supplies for his family. I’m certain the disparity was unintentional, but societal roles had become so ingrained in us that one was automatically viewed as a criminal. I never felt like a criminal, as I’m sure neither of the men in the photographs nor the people around me in the grocery store did. We were doing what was necessary to survive.

  Once I had filled the bag, I found myself stopping at the checkout counter and taking my wallet out of my pocket. Social habits aren’t all easy to break. For a moment I waited, looking around at the wrecked shelves and the overturned payment register, the white collars around me scrambling for sustenance. I laid my wallet on the counter and walked out the front door, leaving behind my driver’s license, six credit cards, insurance certificates, and a few hundred dollars in cash. None of those had any value anymore.

  I stepped out onto the street just in time to see a freight train with its horn blaring barreling past the station in the center of town. It blasted through a car that had been abandoned on the tracks, leaving a trail of flames as it separated the brawling mob into two halves. I jumped back in the car and sped home, coming to a screeching stop in front of the house just as Paul and Sarah’s truck arrived from the other direction.

  “What are you guys doing here?” I asked, getting out of the car with the bag of food.

  “We wanted to make sure you were OK,” Sarah said. “Where’s Maria?”

  “Inside.”

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nbsp; Paul and I just looked at each other without a word as we headed toward the house. I think the same thing occupied both of our minds: our conversation at the farm.

  “I’m home, baby,” I called to Maria through the door before I opened it. “Sarah and Paul are here. We’re coming inside, so don’t shoot us.”

  The shotgun was lying on the floor just inside the door with a fresh shell lying next to it. My stomach dropped. We passed through the kitchen and into the family room. Dining room. Living room. Home office.

  “Maria!” I called to her. “Maria! Talk to me! Where are you?”

  She didn’t respond, but the cat did. I heard the meow from the bedroom, where I ran and threw the closet door open to find them both huddled in a dark corner. Maria was shivering in terror and clutching the cat tightly in her arms. I lifted her up and pulled her to me. She seemed to snap from a trance and picked up her crying where she had left it when I had gone to get food.

  “What happened?” I asked. “Are you all right?”

  “Please don’t leave me again,” she begged.

  “Are you OK? Talk to me!”

  “Someone…I thought someone was trying to get in. Please don’t leave me again. Please don’t leave me again.”

  “I won’t. I promise.”

  I held her tightly, her body quivering in my arms.

  Once Maria had settled, we all tried to relax. We pulled some chicken breasts out of the freezer to thaw for dinner and prepared a nice marinade from various bottled items in the refrigerator. Everything in there would have to be eaten within a day or so anyway. We wouldn’t have electricity much longer, so we might as well enjoy it while we could.

  We had to get our family, I thought, to make sure they were OK. Throughout dinner, I couldn’t get them off my mind. They all lived in safe, or what had been safe, parts of town, and I figured they had enough sense to stay in their homes. For the moment, everyone was probably OK. That could change at any time. Conditions outside were deteriorating at an exponential rate. What we had experienced over the last few weeks was only the beginning of what was to come. When refrigerators and pantries were emptied and there was no food left in the abandoned grocery stores, then where would people turn? It would be a free-for-all. Every man for himself. I thought of the farm again.

  In the light of the next day, Paul and I left the girls with an arsenal at the house and headed off to round up our family around town: my parents and sister, Maria’s parents, her brother and his wife, their two children, and Paul’s and Sarah’s families. We spent three or four hours breaking traffic laws and gathering relatives from all corners of the metropolitan area. The freezing rain seemed like it would never let up. I remember suggesting that we build an ark. Paul laughed and said something about the Titanic having been sunk by less ice than what we were facing; a boat would do us no good. Traffic, needless to say, was light. The fortunate thing about the current situation was that it kept every sane person at home, so we had no trouble finding the ones we were looking for. The collapse had happened gradually enough that none of us had been isolated anywhere. That was also fortunate. I remembered hearing some years before that you should always have a plan and a meeting place for a natural disaster, but I never knew anyone who actually did. Except for Noah’s father, of course, as ill timed as his preparations were. These things always happen when you least expect them and never when you’re planning for them. What we were dealing with was a rather unnatural disaster, but a disaster nonetheless. That’s what it felt like at the time. I lacked the faith and foresight necessary to see it all as birth pains.

  As we drove, I glanced down at my hands on the steering wheel and noticed how bitten down my fingernails were. Some were bleeding. I looked up and realized that I hadn’t seen a plane in quite some time. Perhaps it was the overcast sky that kept them out of sight, but I was pretty certain that nobody was flying anymore. The train I had seen crashing through town was probably the last one I would see for a while. I pitied anyone who hadn’t managed to make it home before the long-range transportation systems had gone down. Wherever they were, they were probably stuck there. If home was across an ocean, it was time to find a boat and some patience. Across the country, they would need a car, or, more likely, a few of them, as fuel was no longer commercially available. We were reliant on whatever was in our tanks. But then what? I looked at the fuel gauge. Less than a quarter of a tank. I decided not to mention it yet. Gathering our family was the first priority. Once they were all with us, then we could start thinking about fuel.

  But I overestimated my gas mileage. We ran dry on our way to Sarah’s parents’ house and had to walk awhile to get there. Fortunately, they still had a car with enough left in the tank to make it back to our house, and on the way, we passed my abandoned and unlocked chunk of metal on the highway. There were an increasing number of those accumulating on the roads and an unusual amount of people walking on the shoulder. Most were headed away from town.

  Our house was then full of relatives and food, a scenario reminiscent of every holiday gathering since my childhood, but without the joyful ambience. We had taken as much food and water with us as possible from each house we had visited. Every container we could find, we filled from the tap, and we boiled what we intended to drink later because we didn’t know if the water treatment facilities were still operational. Our booty would sustain us for the next few days, and nobody left the house during that time. Conversation was not abundant. Neither was laughter. We all just sat around, waiting, wondering what would happen next.

  The electricity went out in the middle of the day. That meant the ignition on the furnace, the thermostat, and the blower were no longer functional. We lit the gas oven with a barbecue lighter and left its door open to produce as much warmth as possible, but the natural gas line quit producing later that night. I had a fire going in the fireplace. Unfortunately, all of the extra firewood was stored on pallets outside and was then completely soaked after days of ceaseless rain. Paul and I carried some into the house, but we would be frozen by the time it was dry enough to burn. We all huddled close together that night, shivering as we tried to sleep.

  The following day was Christmas Eve. The temperature inside the house gradually continued to drop throughout the day. We tore the wrapping paper and opened boxes from the gifts under the tree to restart the fire, but there was no dry wood left to sustain it. We had no choice but to start burning our belongings. We threw in books, picture frames, and various household items. Eventually, we started breaking up furniture to burn. It was devastating. Piece by piece, we watched old memories and family history literally go up in flames, producing heat that seemed to dissipate immediately as it rose to the high ceilings.

  Maria and I held each other and shivered, staring into the fireplace as if entranced. It wasn’t the fire that captivated us. It was an overwhelming sense of grief and helplessness that crept up on us both as we realized that the life that we had been working for was gone forever. Things would never go back to the way they had been. The house no longer felt like our home. It felt more like an oversized cardboard box with nothing left to offer us except for rooms that were too big to heat.

  None of us had ever known true desperation. The feeling of having nothing was an unfamiliar one, and we didn’t know how to cope. As the sun went down that Christmas Eve, I almost envied the homeless or the people in third world countries who had never had a car or a computer or a cell phone. Their lives probably hadn’t changed much over the last few months. I lamented the inexorable loss of all my worldly desires—a big house, fancy cars, a corner office, and a six-figure salary—that would never again be fulfilled.

  We could hear explosions and screaming not far away. They were still rioting outside, and it was getting worse. People were cold and hungry. I think Paul knew all along what needed to be done. He was just waiting for me to say the word. I looked past all of our family toward him and Sarah, who were cuddled together in the same position on the floor that Maria and I
were in. When he glanced back at me, I silently mouthed the word “farm.” He replied with a nod and then turned back to the fire. We would leave the next day.

  3

  THE ESSENTIALS

  When the sun came up on Christmas day, there was not a cloud in the sky. We began packing right away with the sounds of rioting still in the background. Our burden was kept as light as possible, but there were certain things we knew we would need. First, of course, were food and water. Then came warmth. All the clothes we needed we were already wearing, having donned layer upon layer to keep from freezing in the night. Every sheet, blanket, and sleeping bag in the house came with us. The cabin at the farm was smaller than our house and, though a bit crowded, would be much more efficient to heat. It had a large fireplace in addition to the wood-burning stove. There was an abundance of wood there, so having a fuel source for heat and cooking wouldn’t be an issue as long as we were prepared and kept it protected from the weather. There was an axe and an open shed for that purpose. We also brought a tent, just in case. Then toiletries—soap, shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste, and dental floss—all of the hygienic necessities to keep us civilized and whatever medicine we had in the cabinet. My Mossberg came with us too, along with Paul’s assortment of hunting rifles. The Ka-Bar he had given me was still on my belt.

  We set off to the highway in a convoy of five cars, knowing that we were running on the last bit of fuel we would have for a long time. Our Christmas gift to ourselves that year was a new home at the farm. Two of the cars ran out of gas on the way, so we had to consolidate gear and people in the ones still running and leave the others behind. It was a tight trip.