ASCENSION: THE SYSTEMIC SERIES (12 page)

Now that they had won Miami, they had their own little empire, and things were running smoothly – except this Little Havana glitch, which was minor in the overall scheme of things – Ava was starting to notice some troubling signs in Jake. 

Jake had never been one to just sit around and enjoy the good life.  He needed an occasional challenge to keep him occupied and interested.  His whole life had been one big challenge, and without that struggle, it appeared that he didn’t really know what to do with himself.  It seemed that Ava’s hope that Jake could just sit back and enjoy the ride after all the effort they’d put forth, wasn’t coming to fruition – just the opposite in fact.  He seemed unhappier now than she had ever seen him; and worse yet, they’d barely been living the good life a month now. 

Jake had never liked the fact that Ava had bypassed Little Havana during their bid for control of the city.  However, he was willing to let it go if she dealt with those who controlled the neighborhood and ensured they made their payments to him on time.  However, the Little Havana leadership had been a few days late with their most recent payment, thus Jake’s little tirade. 

Ava was content to deal with the problem though.  The deck had been stacked against her for too long now, and she needed every advantage she could lay her hands on.  And Little Havana was one of several aces she had up her sleeve and that she was happy to keep well hidden from Jake until the time was right for it to be played.  Up until now, all business with Little Havana had been conducted by Ava through Mad Dog in an effort to help distance herself from the situation.  But Ava now felt it was time to become more intimately involved.

Therefore, after taking several minutes to pen two quick letters, she rode the elevator down three floors to where they had taken an entire floor of the condo building and converted it into offices for their operation.  There she found two couriers. 

Communications were now handled either by way of radio or couriers, and Ava preferred couriers since they provided some level of privacy where as most radio transmissions could be picked up by eavesdropping outsiders. 

She handed an addressed envelope to each of the men. She placed no names on the envelopes, just addresses in case they were intercepted by Jake or one of the men loyal to him.

“When you get to this address, ask for Bushy, and give him, and
only
him, this envelope,” she emphasized to the first courier.  She handed him a slip of paper with another address written on it.  “Leave the response to my inquiry in the mail drop at this location,” she said.

She waited as he hustled off, and then she turned to the second courier.  “Go to this address and ask for Rico,” she told him, nodding at the envelope she’d given him.  Then she handed him a slip of paper with an address different than that she’d given the other courier.  “Leave the response to my inquiry in the mail drop at this location.” 

He nodded and quickly followed his counterpart.  

After they were gone, Ava took a deep breath, tilting her head to one side to stretch her stiff and tension-filled neck.  She felt completely alone, but she hoped that this was soon to change.

“And now I wait,” she exhaled softly to herself.

CHAPTER 10

The apartment house we selected to set up camp was nothing special.  We chose it largely because it appeared deserted and was the closest thing around upon our early-morning arrival to the area.  Proximity and lack of tenets were two big pluses, and we weren’t looking to press our luck; therefore, after a quick search of the building to ensure that we were indeed alone, we selected two apartments on the third floor, checked that entry doors to the building were secured behind us, and then crashed out, exhausted. 

We didn’t even take time to unpack. 

It was around one in the morning as we shrugged off our packs and shed large portions of our disgusting clothes that we piled inside a closet where we could close the door and distance ourselves from the stench.  Then we found spots where we could rest comfortably, which didn’t take long considering that most of us were so tired we could have slept on a bed of nails and not even known it. 

Since we’d had to kick in the two apartments’ entry doors upon arrival, we hung silverware that would jingle and jangle on the handles as our entry alarms and shoved sofas in front of the doors to slow the entrance of any uninvited entrants.  It was far from perfect security, but considering our physical condition upon arrival, it was better than nothing.

I volunteered for the first shift on watch.  I really didn’t want to.  I was just as exhausted as the others.  But since we were in a new place and had no idea if we were truly alone or whether it would remain that way if we were, we felt it pertinent to have someone on guard duty keeping an eye out for trouble. 

I found staying awake a tough battle as the others began to doze off around me.  The two-bedroom apartments were hot and stuffy, and I was still itchy from bug bites and lack of bathing; but all things considered, I was happy to have arrived at our location and have everyone sleeping in real beds again in a relatively secure environment. 

I walked around our apartment and opened as many windows as I could in an effort to let some of the sea breeze sweep through.  While the breeze wasn’t exactly cool, it was slightly less humid than the stuffy apartment interior, and it helped circulate the oppressive layer of moisture that had accumulated inside.  Then I went and sat down in a chair at a small table near the kitchen of our particular apartment. 

After a few minutes of sitting in the darkness though, I realized that I was quickly becoming drowsy and starting to nod off.  Therefore, I grabbed a flashlight and took to roaming the hallways of the third floor, checking a few of apartments in search of any supplies that might be useful.  Cashmere came with me, curiously poking her little nose into nooks and crannies, rummaging among piles of trash or clothing, sniffing around baseboards, and occasionally batting a bit of rubbish or other dropped item around the floor with a paw. 

It was nice to have her company.

There wasn’t much to see in most of the apartments, but if nothing else, searching them helped keep me awake.  In one apartment, I found an unused tube of toothpaste in the bedroom medicine cabinet.  In another, I found two open bottles of aspirin and a collection of several fishing poles and assorted gear in a hallway closet.  In yet another, I discovered several containers of herbs and seasonings as well as an unopened can of corn and another of canned meat.

I made my searches as thorough as possible in the dark Miami night, opening shelves, cabinets, desk drawers, and closets, killing quite a bit of time in the process. 

Before I knew it, it was nearly four o’ clock.

I was still exhausted, but I felt good that I’d been productive and found a few supplies, and I was particularly excited about the fishing poles as this was something I had on my list of items to accumulate once we arrived to Miami.  Now I could cross it off, free of charge.  I hoped we could do some fishing to help reacquaint those of us who hadn’t fished for a while with the process as well as teach those who had never fished before how to do so.  Best of all, Sharron – our group vegetarian – was willing to eat seafood, which alleviated some of the burden from the food procurement process.    

I hauled my finds back to our apartment, stashed them as quietly as I could, and woke Will, who was due up for the four to seven a.m. shift.                

He wasn’t happy to see me, but he begrudgingly took up his assignment. 

“I killed time searching some of the apartments up here,” I told him.

“Good idea,” he perked up.  “I think I’ll do the same.”

“Definitely helped pass the time,” I said, kind of regretting mentioning it.  I didn’t really like the idea of Will doing the job without me being there since I was worried he’d miss something of value and also because I actually kind of enjoyed the process.  It was like a treasure hunt, and with few forms of entertainment left in our current world, the thrill of the search and the excitement of the find was somewhat exhilarating.  But I kept my mouth shut, realizing that it was a good activity to help keep Will awake and alert and that it was for the benefit the group.  I didn’t want to be selfish in my desire to be seeker and finder of all things useful.

I told him which apartments I’d already gone through so that he wouldn’t overlap my search areas.  Then, after he’d left, I pushed the sofa back up against the front door and crept to the bedroom where I slid into bed alongside Claire and Jason.  There I slept soundly until just after seven when I heard Will jingle-jangle his way in through the front door. 

I got up, curious to see what he’d found.

It wasn’t much, but in our situation, every little bit helped.

Will brought with him several steel frying pans, a big cooking pot, an assortment of dried pasta that he’d poured into one big box, some salt and pepper, a tube of antibacterial ointment, a half full bottle of hand sanitizer, several boxes of soap, two partially-used sticks of deodorant, a box of adhesive bandages, and a bag that contained lots of toilet paper, three boxes of tissue, and several rolls of paper towels.

“Good job,” I nodded at the supplies.

“Thanks,” he said.  “You were right, definitely helped pass the time.”

“Good,” I said.  “We should probably start getting things set up around here.”

“How long you think we’ll stay?” he asked.

“Hopefully not long,” I said.  “But I can’t say for sure.  Depends upon how quickly we can find a boat and get the supplies we need, as well as what we have to do to get them.”

“How long do you
hope
we’re here?” he asked, an eyebrow raised.

“No more than a week,” I shrugged.  “That would be my best-case scenario.  But considering we had to ditch the SUVs and have gone through most of our supplies, we don’t have much bartering leverage anymore.  We might have to spend a while scavenging to come up with everything we need.”

Will nodded.  “Well, we can split up today.  Some of the group can get things arranged here while the rest of us search the apartment building for more stuff.  I made it through four more apartments up here on the third floor.  That means we still have about half the floor left and then the first and second floors.  Hopefully we’ll come up with more items to barter, and then we can search the buildings around us.”

“Assuming they’re unoccupied,” I said.  “Remember, we’re in unfamiliar territory here and we have to watch our step.”

We spent the rest of the day settling in and continuing our scavenging.  We began by getting the kitchen cook area set up since I hoped we’d be able to fish at night to supplement what little food we’d brought with us and found in the other apartments so far.  We used the big pot that Will had come across to create a small cooking spot on our apartment’s now unusable stove.  We set the pot atop the stove and ripped out the enclosed fan area above the stovetop to expose the exhaust vent that continued up and out through the roof.  In this way, we could put some of the fuel we hoped to collect from wood or charcoal left around the building as well as any driftwood on the beach, in the bottom of the pot and set it ablaze, keeping the burn as low and as steady as we could.  Then we set the grated rack of a small but rusted out grill that I’d found in another apartment on the top of our cooking contraption so that we could spread our items out to cook. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but we felt it would work for our needs.  We decided to cook only at night to disguise any smoke that might give away our presence to others in the area.

I decided that later, also under the cover of darkness, Will and I would try our hand at some night fishing.  Sharron and Emily said they’d join us to do some laundry in the ocean as we had found a plethora of laundry soap in the supplies left behind in the neighboring apartments.  It appeared that soap was one thing that was not in heavy demand after the fall of civilization.

Dad, Sharron, Paul, and Sarah continued searching apartments while we worked in the kitchen.  They did a nice job of collecting a variety of useable items.  There wasn’t much food among their goodies, but there were plenty of toiletries, paper products, some nice knives that I hoped might be tradable, a collection of batteries that hadn’t expired yet, numerous candles, a few flashlights, several cigarette lighters, a couple bottles of sunscreen and bug spray, some dry cat food for Cashmere, more fishing supplies, and unfortunately, some remains of previous occupants. 

The initial discovery of the corpses came as a shock to the kids, but thankfully, the carcasses had rotted (or been eaten by rodents, maggots, and other creatures) away over the past year to little more than bones covered in clothing or bed sheets.  It was a sad reality of our post-flu world, and we realized that such encounters would likely continue for years to come.  There were far more previous residents than there were remaining ones, and those who had survived the flu had been so busy just trying to survive that little had been done to provide proper burials for the deceased.  None of us wanted the kids to encounter these sorts of finds if at all possible though, and as soon as the bodies were discovered, the adults would hustle the kids out of the area, quickly wrapping up or covering the remains as best they could in sheets or other bedding before continuing the search.