Vaxdemic Chapter 25
Chapter 25
It’s been a long time since I picked up this journal. Partly because nothing has happened, I feel needs to be written down, and partially because I don’t like reading my last words to Ruth. It’s spring now, almost summer and I need to write a few things down.
It has taken a while, but the pain of Ruth’s death has diminished. Having Claire around helps a lot, but I’ll talk more about her later. It turns out Ruth spent her last few months writing for me and Claire. She filled six notebooks with different information. To me she left a book she wrote on gardening, one on preserving different kinds of food, one for raising different animals, and one about her family history, and things she thought I should know. She also left Claire two books. One Claire tells me is a cook book full of recipes Ruth had memorized, the second she won’t talk about.
While I’ve made peace with Ruth’s passing, unfortunately Rusty hasn’t, at least not completely. It’s been really hard to get him to come inside on all but the coldest nights, and even thought the grave now has a tombstone (made of wood, I still don’t know how to carve stone) and a healthy patch of grass has grown over it, he still sleeps on the grave almost every night. When Abby is outside he’ll still play with her and he even comes to visit me as I work, but he always returns to that spot.
It has taken a while but we’ve finally boxed up most of Ruth’s stuff. I keep it stored in the attic. I wasn’t really happy about this but we need the room. So, it seems that Rusty and I have something in common. If you leave us alone with a female long enough, well. Long story short Claire is expecting. Left with just the two of us I guess it was inevitable. My next words will probably mean I have to hide this journal from her for the rest of my life. She ended up sneaking into my bedroom in January. Me being unusually dim when it comes to women didn’t know what this meant at first, but she gave me a clue pretty quick.
We suspect she about four months along. Apparently, I’m annoying her with my attention. The words Ruth told me when Abby was pregnant keep ringing in my ears. I can’t help it, I’m both worried and excited. Claire still insists on doing most of the house work herself saying I don’t do it right, so I spend my time tending to the garden and geese.
I finished the wall around the property in February. It’s about twelve feet high, and after some trial and error it has a platform you can walk across the top on. It’s hard not to feel I’ve built myself a little castle wall around my farm. It took a lot of material from the surrounding houses, so we have a pretty clear view. It’s taking some work to maintain. I’m not the building expert I wish I was, but I get a little better every time.
I’m also getting better with electronics. I’ve almost figured out how to build my own regulator unit to replace the first I installed in case the need every comes up. I’ve used this knowledge for some lazy stuff too. I’ve set up an automatic irrigation system for the gardens, and some motion detectors outside the wall to warn us if something’s coming. My projects keep stacking up, but I’m starting to love figuring new stuff out.
There is one thing I’m having trouble with, metal working. I’ve read a number of books, and done a lot of experiments, but the best I’ve managed so far is making new bullets for ammo. My rounds are inferior to what we have stocked, and with so much we’re not in danger of running out any time soon. Eventually we will need more metal, for building, repairs, etc. I’m afraid to try any big metal working equipment with my electric system. I don’t believe my windmills can generate the power needed, nor my regulator survive such a load.
Getting back to Claire, having spent more time alone with her I can now say, she’s still just as odd as the day I met her. She’s certainly more comfortable than when she arrived, but her eyes are still wild, and shift constantly when she’s outside. She’s gotten a little better about her fear since I finished the wall, but I think being pregnant is making her worry about the future. She has sent me off several times to bring back medical stuff, baby clothes, and things for the dogs.
We sleep in the same room now, which means the dogs sleep in the same room too. I wake up sweating every morning from the collective body head piled around the bed. Claire likes it, and she says it makes her feel safe. I’ve taught her a little about handling a gun. She was resistant at first, but after mentioning she may need it to protect the baby and the dogs one day, she’s started practicing every other day.
We have no clue what the baby will be. One thing we both miss about medicine from the life before. So, we’ve started taking bets on if it will be a boy or a girl. The winner gets to pick the child’s first name and the loser gets the middle. There’s no argument about the last name and there’s a good reason for it. When Claire found out she was pregnant she had the dogs hold me down. Then she informed me about the impending child and with a line I never thought I would hear she informed me I needed to take responsibility for what I had done, (conveniently forgetting who snuck in to who’s room.). When I jokingly asked if she expected me to marry her, she said yes. So that evening we held a ceremony in backyard. It feels rather odd since all five of our witnesses have four legs and wrestled through most of the ceremony.
She flinched at the end when I called her by her new name of Claire Stackey. Apparently, the subject of our last names never came up before. Unfortunate for her because now she’s stuck with it regardless of her constant refusals. Now when I want to have some fun I will call her Mrs. Stackey, to which she promptly smacks me with whatever she’s holding.
All of this is just to catch you up to what happened today and why I’m using the last pages of this journal. I was tending the geese when I heard Claire yelling from the house. I ran to the house a quickly as I could. When I got inside I saw she was standing behind the front door looking through the peep hole. She was in such a panic I had trouble understanding her words. After a few moments of hysterics she said, “People!” and called the dogs to her. I looked through the peephole and through the bars on the gate I saw people outside walking around a buggy.
I grabbed my shotgun and called Abby to me. It took a moment to reassure Claire I would be coming back so I could leave the house. I wasn’t far into the front yard when I saw her face and three dogs pressed against the glass of the living room window. Abby walked beside me never taking her eyes off the gate. The men had noticed the sound of our approach and walked toward the bars. Two men appeared on the other side. Both wore dark pants and suspenders, with a wide black hats, white shirts, and long well-trimmed beards. My first thought was Amish.
“Greetings,” the taller of the two men said. “Is this your home?”
I nodded and said, “Yes, it is. Can I help you?”
The taller man smiled and said, “I hope so. We’re a scouting party. About a month back someone spotted light in this direction near sunset. It took some discussion but it was agreed we would be sent to see if anyone was still alive here. We’ve been searching for two days and you’re the first person we’ve seen.”
“I hate to tell you, I’ve been here since the power shut off and I’ve only found two other people. A friend whose no longer with us, and my wife.” Telling someone Claire was my wife felt strange. To this point it almost felt like a joke the two of us shared. Now faced with two outsiders it felt more like a declaration of protection.
Neither man appeared armed, so I asked, “Are you armed?”
“Got some guns in the wagon for protection. Lots of dangerous animal now a days. Dangerous times, but we come in peace. Like I said we’re just scouting. There’s people outside the city who would be happy to know it’s safe to come in, but we’ve established some rules. I could tell you about them, if you like,” the taller man said.
I wasn’t sure how to begin. Excitement and fear competed for space. My mind raced. I wanted to know more, but I also was worried about who these men might really be. I looked down at my hands. I noticed they were rough, hard, and thick with callous from my constant building and farming. I got an idea. “Are you gentlemen Amish?”
“Mennonite, but you’re not far off,” said the taller man.
“So, you’re farmers?”
“My whole life,” said the taller man.
“Then show me your hands,” I said. The taller man smiled and raised his hands to the gate. My hands may have been hard and calloused from a year and a half of this life, but the tall man’s hands spoke of a lifetime of hard manual labor. The man beside him also raised his hand and they told the same story. “I’m going to let one of you in, unarmed to talk. The other has to wait here till I decide what to do. Both men nodded. “Before anything else, tell me your names.”
The tall man smiled at his companion. “My friend is named Harold, and I am Seth, it is nice to meet you.”
Bob Stackey
May 20, 2023