Fall
It happened so quick, it seemed like everything was going along, we were getting ready for preschool with our four year old son, Damien, I worked for the local parks department and we had just finished our summer activities. My wife, Jessica, Damien and I were soaking in the last bits of summer before those pacific northwest rains brought the cool of fall. We had gone camping to the rocky beaches of southwest Washington for that weekend. I still remember Jessica's smile next to the waves and Damien' sandy face. But when we got back to our house, there was no more time for smiles.
COVID had mutated, changed. I was called into the emergency operations center to help with communications and spent my first two days back just trying to keep up. The news was sudden and bleak. The Coronavirus had escalated, was transmitted through some other vector than water droplets and turned exceptionally lethal towards men. By the first day, reports of massive deaths at hospitals, public transit and grocery stores. Minimal exposures turned deadly with the victims having just enough time to get home before dying in their beds, coughing.
Jessica was terrified - she tried to keep calm at the house with Damien but he knew something was wrong. He was fussy and stubborn and had no interest in television or toys. I came home late the first day but by the second day, as our local hospital shut down and death tolls reached the thousands in our county alone, I knew I must stay at home.
The third day blurred into the fourth and the fifth. I put out notices to shelter in place but my emails to coworkers remained unanswered and social media was a terrifying mess. The President hadn't been seen in days, there was no federal response and all we could do was stay in and pray the lights stayed on.
By the end of the week, we needed food. Jessica went out, fully covered to try and protect herself. She came back an hour later, the store was a mess but she managed to grab rice, some canned goods and plenty of beans. I turned off the computer and phone and we tried to pass the time.
Winter
I don't remember what happened next but I do remember the black vans. Government, probably from the border patrol, going house to house. They knocked on our door, I answered to find someone in a containment suit asking if there were any dead in the house. I said no. He looked relieved and perplexed but quickly made the rounds to our neighbors. We tried to keep Cy from the windows but we saw his stretcher making several trips.
I was unsure if I still had a job. I tried to get someone on the phone and ended up speaking with the City Clerk. She couldn't get anyone to pick up either so she had stopped by City Hall. She found one of the inspectors in his office, dead, and that was it. No one else had come in, everyone else was staying home from the shelter in place order. Her husband was still alive although she lost her mother and some extended family.
We discussed what to do but at the end of the day, what was there to do? This was so beyond our scope. We needed police and federal assistance. I told her to call if she needed anything.
The days turned dark. Some days I worked from home, some days we just played cards and tried to pass the time. Eventually the details came out, 9 out of 10 men had been killed by the virus, the government was in shambles trying to pick things up, services had stopped and fear set in. The virus had dispersed, whatever had happened, it wasn't transmitting anymore, but small comfort after the carnage we'd witness.
In December, the federal government made its decision. It was too hard to feed and protect so many people left distant. They were converting Seattle into a large scale housing community, with the surrounding area to serve the people living there. They weren't sure about jobs and connection to the community but the offer was simple, if you want to eat and be safe, come register to live in Seattle. We can't guarantee anything if you stay out in the County.
Jessica and I were torn. Safety for Damien? Would we be safe? In classic married fashion, we had swapped opinions a couple of times. The tipping point was, of all things, her sister. Her sister had lost her husband to the virus and was trying to raise her son by herself. Her son and Damien were the same age and best friends. We couldn't separate them. We called her up and talked it through.
That night I took an evening walk, as I often did, through the overgrown raspberry fields near our home. The farms had long since abandoned them and the quiet stillness was refreshing. I missed people. I missed friends. I missed my old life. It was weird no longer hearing the buzz of airplanes or the distant sound of traffic. Sure there were some but all our neighbors had either packed up and left or died. I sat on an old stump and stared up at that pale cold moon.
I had been a pretty devout man before the virus. I was wiccan, as was my wife. We honored the cycle of the seasons, danced around the maypole in spring and leapt over the Samhain fire in fall. I tried to find that voice of the Goddess that had been with me since I was fifteen. That had grown within me as I found my path.
And there it was. If I wanted a new life, I would need to grow it myself. I skipped back home, almost breaking to run across the field to my house. I paused to collect myself, after all, it wouldn't do any good to scare Jessica before trying to persuade her. But I knew that I must.
We were going to stay. We were going to try to homestead and make our own way.
Spring
The first step was moving my sister-in-law, Sarah, nearby. We took an inventory of the houses on our street. Thankfully, we didn't have to break any windows. When you aren't afraid of anyone bothering you, you can find that missing key, pop out a screen window or in one case, bust out a small bit of glass and unlock the doors. Thankfully, we didn't discover any bodies, at this point, they would have been pretty foul. Lots of rotted food in kitchens, mold in sinks and dust everywhere but nothing that couldn't be cleaned.
After much deliberation, Sarah took over the house directly across from it. She said it was because of the large garage where she could work on vehicles but I think it was because of the solar panels. She was already thinking ahead about what would be hard to get a hold of.
We spent the next couple of weeks moving them in and getting things cleaned up. Jessica did most of that while I started to work on the bigger picture. We would need our own food and lots of it. It was only a matter of time before the grocery stores in town closed up and shut down. We need seeds, more farming tools, reliable water. My list grew.
Money was touch and go - with the City government barely struggling along, I continued to receive my paycheck through December but after that, it simply stopped arriving. Thankfully, I stopped paying my mortgage - what were they going to do? The banks probably thought I was dead.
So we went to the hardware store and bought every seed we could lay our hands on. This was it, we were betting the farm, literally.
We churned soil, tore up the grass and converted as much space as possible to gardens. Full lush gardens. With no jobs, there was plenty of time to build and dig and water and weed. Some days, I loved it. Some days, I hated it. But mostly, I enjoyed the calm and peace.
My heart ached for what we had lost, but the boys loved running in the fields, exploring and playing. Jessica and Sarah conspired about some sort of preschool or education time but I argued to hold off. Best wait till the weather turns cold and wet and there's nothing else to be done but stay inside.
The power stayed on. I don't know how or why but we kept electricity all through the summer and into the fall. During this time there were a few cars going by but no one visited our little paradise. We did take trips out - trying to get supplies. At one point, we broke into Walgreens and wiped out their cold and flu supplies. Most of the cough syrup had been stolen by meth heads but we did grab plenty of aspirin, bandages and the like.
The harvest was full and delicious. Sarah had even caught some fish and we canned most of the leftover veggies and beans. We knew it was going to be a long summer.
By fall, we were all going stir crazy.
Fall
Jessica died and the whole world almost came crashing down. She was out, foraging in an abandoned house in one of the nearby towns. We had biked there while Sarah watched the kids. Jessica was downstairs while I was upstairs - she had tried the door to a garage and there was someone waiting with a gun. They were scared - I don't think they even meant to do it but the sound - it wasn't as loud as I expected but I hear it every day.
Picking up the pieces was hard but we had help. Our friends who lived down in Bellingham came up and took over another empty house on the block - they initially tried to go down to the facility at Seattle but their bus got hijacked along the way and they decided to tough it out in Skagit County for a while. After they ate up all the food they could find, they made their way back up north and luck would have it, ran into Sarah while she was gathering tools from a maintenance shed at the nearby middle school.
Fae and Justin wove seamlessly into the fabric of our little community. Fae, only 4 foot 5, was a tiny ball of energy and the children loved her. Justin, a former carpenter, had a never ending supply of projects and was a great listener. Together, it began to feel a little like home and the dark cloud that hung over us lifted, just a bit.
