Chapter 2

Quarantine

Now I am starting to get a little nervous. I mean I have to go back to school on Monday and I will be in germ central. I have a very good immune system, every teacher does, but this new strain of flu seems to overcome just about everybody. I might have already been exposed at the doctor’s office for all I know. I think it is time to isolate myself. Thank goodness I am prepared for situations like this. It makes it easier that I just came home from shopping also. I picked up enough fresh groceries for about two weeks and have enough frozen and canned supplies to last for a good six months.

Six months is more than most people will have if needed. I am something of a preparedness nut. I have always wanted access to enough supplies to keep me going in case something bad happened. It all started back when I was in in middle school. When I was 12 years old in eighth grade my 3 best friends and I decided that we would go camping. This was nothing unusual as we were all in boy scouts and lived in the mountains. Camping was just one of the many activities that we did. However, this time we decided we could handle a long weekend without supervision and somehow convinced our parents that this was a good idea also.

So the four of us were dropped off by Tommy’s dad at the river about 35 kilometers from town and we decided we were going to cross it and camp on the far side. Less people over there so we wouldn’t have to deal with weekender’s and out of towners who were not true camp people like we were. Being old hands at this, we went to one of our favorite campsites and started setting up. We were about 20 meters away from the river and had never run into a problem when we camped here before. Late that evening though it started to rain. Not a problem, we were all scouts and had come prepared. The long weekends camping trip would not be as fun, but it still was better than being home.

We all adjourned to our tents and did not even consider that there might be a problem. About 3 a.m. Stephen started yelling and woke us all up. We stumbled out of our tents and told him to calm down. It seems that the river was rising, much more than it ever had in the past. Stephen had gotten up to pee and noticed that the river was only 5 meters away from us instead of the normal 20 meters. Now folks this was a problem. The original size of the river was only 10-15 meters wide and no more than meter deep in most places. Kind of a really big creek more than a river. Now though it was at least triple its size and still rising. We did not panic, but decided that getting to higher ground would be a good idea. We packed everything up, and then started walking east away from the river and ran into a problem.

What we had not considered was that we had camped on an upraised spot next to the river. It was about 7-10 meters higher than the surrounding area. The river had not just flooded but surrounded us and left us on a newly made island. In the dark, even with our flashlights, we could not tell how far across the new river on the east side was so we did not know if it was small enough to cross. We decided to head back to camp and move to the highest point on our new island and reassess the situation at first light. So we did exactly that. Every once in a while someone would go and check on the river. It was still rising but not nearly as fast.

It started to get light around 6:30 a.m., and soon enough it was bright enough to see. We headed down to the original river side to scope that out first. Definitely not getting out that way. The original river was 10-15 meters across and about a meter deep, no it was 75-85 meters across and probably 5-10 meters deep. We couldn’t tell exactly, but we could see some rather large logs and trees washing by. So we turned around and tried the east side of our new island. This side looked better from a crossing point, but was still 25-30 meters wide and at least 2-3 meters deep, maybe more. Not something we wanted to risk.

So we sat down and talked about what we were going to do. After about an hour of arguing, we finally decided to go fishing. You see we realized we really could not do anything ourselves and were completely dependent on someone realizing that we might be in trouble and coming to get us. Since we could not do anything, why not have fun why we wait. We fished, played tag, set up camp again, and just goofed around the entire day. The water stopped rising, and it finally stopped raining around 4 in the afternoon. We lit our dinner fire and started cooking some ramen. 30 minutes later we heard people yelling from the river side.

Curious we went down and saw a forest ranger and several of our parents on the far side of the impassable river. You could see the relief in their eyes when they saw us walk out of the trees. After shouting several times, we were basically told we needed to wait for the river to go down before they could come and get us. No problem, we had planned on camping another day anyway. Two days later, the river had not gone down far enough for us to escape, we had run out of food, and it started to rain again. We were starting to get really worried.

Because of the flooded conditions, fishing was hard. We were lucky if we caught 1 or 2 a day, not really enough food for four growing boys to live on. Our parents and others realized we were in a bad predicament also. They told us not to worry and to just rest so as not to use as much energy. Two very hungry days later, the local National Guard was finally called in and we were helicoptered out. All of our camping supplies were left behind on the island, but we got a free chopper ride and some local fame. It was two weeks before the river went down enough for us to go and retrieve our things.

This caused me to realize that if I had not been lucky enough for my parents to know where I was and what I was doing I could have been in real trouble. Since then I have always wanted access to enough supplies, just in case something happens. I am not a full time crazy stocking up for the end of the world, but I have run into situations, usually financial, that have caused me to eat into my six month supply over the years. I decided that enough was enough for today and to just go to bed and do my regular activities for the weekend. I would be able to recheck the situation on Sunday.

Saturday I spent working in my garden and reading once again. I decided Sunday would be my electronics day this week. I may be older, but I still enjoy playing video games every once and a while. Sunday would be the perfect day for a marathon gaming session. After which I could recheck the news and prepare for school the next day. The gaming session started off well, I had just picked up Dungeons III a couple of weeks earlier and had not really had the chance to sit down and play it like I wanted too. Now I could. 3 hours into my gaming session I got the munchies and decided to fix lunch.

Preparing a quick sandwich in the kitchen, I soon ate and was headed back for round two of my gaming session when my phone rang. I answered and was surprised to hear an all call announcement from my school. It seems that school would be cancelled for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday due to the flu outbreak. The district would reassess on Wednesday and make a decision on whether to cancel for the rest of the week at that time. This surprised me. Schools shut down for a lot of things, but sickness is not usually one of them. The number of people affected by this must be huge in order for them to make this decision. I needed more information.

I went and grabbed my I-Pad from the charger and logged on. First stop, the msn website to check new and my e-mail. There were several news stories that talked about how horrible the flu was. After reading a couple I was getting a little worried. I definitely am going to avoid contact with people for a few days just to be on the safe side. I wonder if my daughter is ok. I need to call her and see if she is sick. I better make the phone rounds and check on the rest of the family as well. I just talked to them a couple of days ago after the doctor’s appointment, but it seems like this flu is hitting hard and quick. I continue to browse articles concerning the flu, while talking on the phone with the relatives. My daughter had already caught it but fought it off. Dad was down with the flu and mom was taking care of him. My sister was too busy taking care of her kids to get sick she told me. Finally, my little brother was recovering from his bout with the flu just like my daughter.

I felt relieved that everyone seemed to be doing okay at the moment. Just before I was about to shut down the I-Pad and get back to my game, a new article appeared on the news feed. “Flu Victims Turning Violent” Even though I knew it was click bait I had to see what this was about. I started reading the article and read that at several hospitals people who had been admitted with the flu turned violent and bit or tried to bite any one close by. Doctors were stating this was due to hallucinations and dehydration. The article of course linked it to an outbreak of zombies. You always hear how the newest disease that has infected a lot of people is going to destroy humanity. Good for the author on actually making the link between biting and zombies. That should entertain a lot of people and get him more views. I mean who doesn’t love a good zombie story.

I shut it down and laughed a little to myself. A zombie apocalypse, how neat would that be. I have supplies and plans galore. I pictured myself as the lone survivor searching for others to help save humanity. I knew that reality would be vastly different than many stories if a disease actually broke out that killed so many people. However, it was still fun to imagine and prepare for. I had zombie shirts, escape plans, and survival books. I was ready as any man could be that did not actually think a zombie apocalypse could happen.

Why do I have the stuff then? Two main reasons, first it was fun, and second and more importantly being ready for a zombie apocalypse meant you were ready for almost every other disaster out there. Even the CDC in recent years had put a zombie survival page and recommended supplies on their website to encourage people to prepare for all types of disasters. Let’s face it, many people will buy supplies and have fun preparing for zombies, but if you told them to prepare for an earthquake that may or may not happen they would not do it.

I decided to cook a steak on the grill for dinner that night. I enjoyed my steak, played a few more video games and realized that I could sleep in tomorrow due to the cancellation of school. It was a good day. I went to bed happily knowing that I did not have to deal with hormonal teenagers the next day. Around 2 a.m. I woke up in great pain. My guts hurt, I felt hot and cold at the same time, and I barely made it to the bathroom. What the heck was wrong with me. This felt as bad as the epic food poisoning incident of 2011 involving undercooked shrimp and the buffet which shall not be named.

I tried to think of the cause of this horrible sickness in between bouts of fluids coming out of both ends of my body. My steak should have been fine. I cooked it the same way I always do. I had some lemonade with dinner, some steamed broccoli, and a small spinach salad. Maybe it was the salad? It was not too long ago in the news that they talked about an E. coli outbreak on spinach. Maybe this was what E. coli poisoning felt like. I knew eating healthy would kill me faster than the desserts. Salad has gotten its revenge.

The rest of the night was me battling the horrible symptoms I had. I did not think I had that much liquid in me. I kept trying to drink fluids, because I knew that dehydration was my worst enemy when it came to sickness. Somewhere around 6 a.m. I was finally able to keep down a cup of water and a shot of the store brand of flu medicine and I fell unconscious. I woke up almost twelve hours later with a horrible case of cotton mouth and still feeling sick. However, I no longer felt like I was going to die. I hope this was food poisoning, because if this is what everyone is going through with the flu then this is going to be bad. I almost could not take care of myself and younger children and older people definitely would not be able too. I am going to at least quarantine myself through the end of the week just to be safe. I will call into work if need be, but if what I had is contagious and not because of salad poisoning then I do not want someone else to catch it from me.