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I was only an hour north of Charlotte when I realized that mail trucks didn’t seem meant for long-distance travel. The seats didn’t recline, there was no air conditioning, and the steering wheel was on the wrong side of the vehicle, which I admit took me some time to get used to, especially when going around corners. Since they built the truck like a box, the gas mileage wasn’t all that great either. The highway sign I saw said that Elkin was only twenty miles up the road, so I made that my destination to stop for gas, find some food, and rest my already aching back. God, I missed my Mustang.
Once I pulled off the interstate and headed west on Highway 67, I realized Elkin didn’t look so bad. There were people out and about, but unlike in the city, they didn’t travel in packs, seemed nonthreatening, and generally just went about their business. Most of them waved, which brought a smile to my face as I waved back. Good old country hospitality. Not wanting to draw too much attention to myself, I found the local post office, and fortunately for me, it was a post office that had its own fuel pumps. I gassed up the mail truck, then left it locked and parked while I went for a walk to stretch my back muscles. A block up from the post office was a service station, and in front of that station was a man sitting on a bench sipping from a can of cola.
“Howdy,” the man said as I approached.
“Good afternoon to you. Are you Red?” I asked. It was a reasonable assumption. The sign on the front of the building said ‘Red’s Garage’, and the man on the bench was wearing mechanic’s overalls, complete with a wrench sticking out of the front pocket. He also looked like a Red with his lanky build, gray hair, and stubby beard.
“Me, no. Red died in the early nineties. Ninety-two maybe? Cancer got him. I’m Donnie. I took over after Red died.”
“Good to meet you,” I said. “Maybe you can help me out. I’m looking for a gas can or two. I can pay.”
“With what?” Donnie asked.
“Money. I can give you, let’s say, twenty dollars a can?”
Donnie responded with a laugh, so hearty droplets of soda erupted from his mouth and splattered on the sidewalk. “Money? What the fuck would I do with money? Lemme guess, you’re from the city, son?”
I nodded. “Charlotte.”
“Figures,” Donnie said as he wiped his chin. “See, you’re from the city, thinking that money’s the answer to everything. But it ain’t. Not anymore. That way of life is done, at least for a little while until someone can right the ship again, but hell, how many years is that gonna take? The money was only good cuz the government backed the bills, but the government is gone. The toilet paper I have hidden in my barn is worth more than money now.”
“Then why keep your shop open?” I asked.
“Barter, son. Barter’s the new currency. Steve Johnson has a trolling motor he needs fixed. I fix his motor. He gives me eggs. I don’t much like eggs, but Maisy Ross does, so I give her the eggs, and she gives me a pie. See how that works, son? We’re back to the olden days. You need to start thinkin’ like that. You need something to barter, whether it be a skill, service, knowledge, or goods. Of course, you might also be a scrounger or a thief, but I imagine those folks ain’t going to last long. Got it?”
“Got it,” I agreed. Donnie was right. It was a new world, which meant I needed to adjust my thinking. It also meant I was in deeper shit than I originally thought I was.
“Thanks for the words of advice,” I said.
Donnie nodded, and I turned back toward the post office.
“You forgot the cans. There’s four of them in the back of the bay. You’re welcome to take the two that are empty.”
I turned back around. “Are you sure? I have nothing to trade for them.”
“Ain’t you been listening, son? The world is different now. We haven’t had a gasoline delivery in a while now, which means it’s gonna start getting scarce. And even if you had a swimming pool full of it, it goes bad, you know.”
I didn’t know. And he knew that based on the stupid look I had on my face.
Donnie shook his head. “After about three months, the gas starts to go stale, especially if it ain’t stored correctly. I’d say a year is about the limit. After that, I won’t need the cans anymore, anyway. New world, new rules, son. Remember that.”
Donnie took another drink of his cola, and I took advantage of the conversation break to retrieve the two gas cans.
“Thanks again,” I said.
“You want some free advice to go with those cans?” Donnie asked. “You need to learn something.”
Learn something? Had I heard that right? The words offended me. “I know plenty. I have a bachelor’s in business and an MBA.”
Donnie looked me dead in the eye. “Well, la-de-dah, Mr. MBA man. Did you learn anything gettin’ that MBA that’ll help you now? Like how to dig a well, or how to build a cookin’ fire, or how to select a wild mushroom that won’t kill you?”
He had me, and he knew it. “No,” I capitulated.
“Well then,” he said. “Good luck to you, Mr. MBA man.”
I nodded, then returned to the post office, filled the gas cans, and stored them in the truck with my bike.
I fired up the truck and pulled out of the post office the opposite way from which I came, if only to avoid passing Donnie on Main Street, and a blue sign pointing toward the local library caught my eye. With a plan in mind, I turned the corner, drove three blocks, and pulled into the library’s parking lot.
I locked the truck, and headed for the front door, wondering if it was open and staffed, but I assumed by the smashed-in glass that the days of the librarian had passed as well. Careful not to cut myself, I slipped in through the missing window and stepped into the library. I noticed someone had ransacked it, since the nearest book display was upended and there was a trail of random CDs and DVDs scattered from the door leading to where I assumed they had previously sat in the stacks. As I walked deeper into the depths, I noticed the initial mess was the only damage done, which made sense, since the only thing of value in a library is knowledge.
From behind the desk, I pulled an empty book cart and wheeled it with me to the non-fiction section. It would have been easier to find what I was looking for had there been a good old-fashioned paper card catalog, but I didn’t have that option, so I resorted to browsing the shelves instead. I strolled up and down the aisles, selecting books at random and paging through them before I added them to the growing pile on the cart or setting it back on the shelf. After an hour of wandering around the non-fiction section, I moved over to the general fiction section and grabbed whatever they had by Grisham, Koontz, Cussler, and King, and added those to the pile.
The book cart was heavy as I pushed it through the library to the front door. Rather than transfer them by hand through the broken glass, I found the latch to unlock the door and wheeled the cart out to the truck. As I transferred the books to the truck, I kept a mental tally of what I had, including several books on gardening, a few cookbooks, small engine repair, home repair, first aid, herbal medicines, and a handful of field guides to help me identify anything from fowl and flora, to fauna and rocks. Between the non-fiction and fiction, I stacked just over fifty books into the truck with my bike and the gas cans.
Out of respect for the institution, I returned the book cart to where I found it and relocked the front door before slipping through the broken window.
As I strolled to the truck, I both heard and felt the growl emanating from my stomach. My last meal was breakfast before I left my house, and that seemed like months ago. I got in the truck and drove around the small town until I came across the local supermarket. Like the library, the store was unmanned, but unlike the library, the shelves were empty. Even so, I grabbed a shopping cart and pushed it up and down every aisle, and into the rear of the store, looking for anything I might find. In the end, my haul was a single can of wax beans, a box of kitchen matches, and a half-empty bottle of water that I drank down in four gulps.
In the general store next to the supermarket, my score was a little better. I scrounged up a sleeping bag, a small camp stove, and a hunting knife. It wasn’t much, but I added my finds to the mail truck, then drove back to the garage.
Donnie was still sitting where I last saw him.
“Hey Donnie,” I said, leaning out the window, “do you know where I can rustle up some food or water?”
Donnie stood and walked to me and leaned on the door. “Water’s easy. There’s a town square three blocks east of here with a tap that comes from the water tower. Still worked as of yesterday. Food, let’s see, you remember Maisy Ross?”
“The pie lady?”
“Yeah, the pie lady. She’s a widow, got a place just outside of town. Head toward the highway and take the first driveway on the right once you get past the ‘Welcome to Elkin’ sign. She’s got a soft heart, so I imagine she’d trade you some food if you did a few chores around her place.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Another lesson, for you, Mr. MBA man, wherever you’re going, stay off the interstate. Take the opportunity of every town you go through to look for food. Stores, gas stations, places with vending machines, even houses if you know they’re empty. You won’t last long on an empty stomach.”
“Thanks for the lesson.” I saluted, then pulled away from the curb.
It turned out Donnie was right about Maisy Ross. She had a whole list of chores that needed to be done, and after I spent three hours working around her farm, she rewarded me with a sit-down meal and since the daylight was fading, an offer to sleep in her barn, which I took her up on.
The next morning, Maisy made me a small breakfast of one egg and two pieces of toast from homemade raisin bread, then surprised me with a half-dozen jars of canned vegetables and a jar of canned peaches. We said our goodbyes on the back porch, and I was back on the road.
Part of me wanted to ignore Donnie’s advice and just get the rest of the drive over with since it would only be another three hours of road time, but I thought better of it, retrieved a road atlas I’d taken from the library, and plotted out a route along state roads instead.
My journey took almost a full day to get from Elkin to Pottsfield, Virginia, but the delay was worth it, as my bounty was growing exponentially. The first town I stopped in I found a moving supply store, so I wandered in and helped myself to several boxes and a few rolls of packing tape. With those, I packed away the books and organized everything else in the truck. At a gas station, I found an almost-full propane tank, and down the block I found seven five-gallon water jugs stacked nicely in a storeroom of a small gas station. Granted, the jugs were empty, but that was something I thought I could fix easily enough the next time I found a working tap, or a natural spring. I had paged through the water section of a survival guide to know enough that to be completely safe I’d have to either boil my water or find a filter or purification tablets somewhere, so I had already added those items to my growing list of things to watch out for.
I had just passed over the state line into Virginia when I entered a town so small I didn’t even catch the name of it. There wasn’t much to the town, and as the road changed from the highway number to Main Street, I didn’t think my scrounging options would be too fruitful. When I got to the downtown area, which only comprised a single intersection with a four-way stop, I saw how little of a town it actually was. The north block contained a car dealership, and from the looks of the inventory, it hadn’t sold a car in at least thirty-five years. The south block held an antique store with its plate-glass window busted out, and on the eastern corner stood a bank which had its front doors removed. What really caught my eye was the pharmacy that was sitting on the western side of the intersection. Unlike its neighboring buildings, the pharmacy didn’t look like it had sustained any damage at all, and when I pulled up to the building, I realized why. Large metal grates protected the main door and window. I could tell someone had given their best effort to get in since there was a crowbar lying on the ground next to the door. There were several fresh scratches on the grate, but the defenses had held. I picked up the crowbar, got back into my truck, and pulled around to the alley of the building.
The pharmacy’s rear was just as fortified as the front. The building was completely bricked in, except for a shipping dock door, which I could tell hadn’t seemed breached, either. Looking around, the only possible entry point was a small second-story window positioned in the center of the building, about fifteen feet from the ground. It looked promising, so I positioned my truck beneath the window, then dug around in the back to retrieve the extension ladder I had found earlier in the day. I climbed up onto the roof of the truck and leaned the ladder against the building. The ladder ended about a foot below the window, but that was close enough. I grabbed the crowbar, then climbed the ladder.
When I reached the top, I peered through the window and saw that the room was a small office. Just beneath the window was a desk, with a single lamp and cluttered with paperwork, an uncomfortable looking wooden chair, and four five-drawer file cabinets. It looked promising.
I raised the crowbar to smash the window, but before I did, I simply pushed up on the frame. Not locked, the window slid open. Although the sash protested, I opened it wide enough to enter without having to break it. I scrambled down from the desk and left the room, where I found a set of rickety stairs that led to the bottom floor.
The stairs creaked and moaned as I descended. I could tell immediately no one had ransacked the pharmacy. Everything was in place on the shelves. There were no telltale signs of broken glass, no random piles of debris, nothing at all to indicate anyone else had been in the building. Until I wandered over to where they kept the good stuff. Upon first glance, when I approached the pharmacist’s area, everything looked normal, but when I stepped in front of the door, I noticed the door was hanging only by the top hinge. Carefully, I pushed my way through the door and entered the restricted area, and once inside, I could tell that indeed a looter or two had been there before me. The shelves had little labels attached to where they housed the bottles of specific medicines, and the spots where the codeine, morphine, and anything with the suffix ‘codone’ were empty. In addition, there were other areas of empty shelves, but since I didn’t recognize either the brand or generic names, I couldn’t tell what had disappeared. Whoever had beaten me to the punch had left behind all the ‘cillins’, so I loaded up a bag with everything I recognized that could stave off an infection.
When I finished behind the counter, I strolled into the main area of the pharmacy, which turned out to be a cornucopia of goodies. Besides the drugs, nothing else looked touched. I grabbed a shopping cart from the corral near the front door, along with a handful of bags, and started my pilfering spree. First, I grabbed all the pain relievers, antacids, and cold and flu medicines that I could find. I filled up on every bottle of multivitamins that I could get my hands on. I stocked up on adhesive and regular bandages, and personal hygiene items such as toothpaste and mouthwash, and antibacterial and bar soaps, and toilet paper. Unfortunately, the pharmacy wasn’t large enough to have a large number of foodstuffs, but it contained cases of bottled water, soda, and sports drinks, and I found a small snack aisle full of nuts, candy, and various flavors of beef jerky.
By the time I finished, I had four shopping carts filled with goodies. Now all I had to do was get out of the building without being seen.
I trudged back up the stairs and looked out the window. There wasn’t a soul in sight, and I leaned my head out to listen for any sounds in the area. It was all quiet. I rushed back downstairs and found my way to the shipping dock area. There was a button to open the shipping door, which I pushed, and the door rattled and squealed open so loudly I was certain a horde of people would appear at any moment. When the door stopped, I waited, ready to push the button to lower the door again, but after almost a full minute, no one came.
With great haste, I loaded everything into my truck, returned all the carts inside the building, then pushed the button to close the door. I slipped under the door and exited the pharmacy, returned to the truck, and soon I was on my way again.
