Chapter 5

[Preservation – Jim's Story]

My name is Jim Sinclair. I am a General class ham operator. I was twenty-seven on the Day. I worked for a large company and traveled for them on projects. I lived in Richmond, Virginia, before the Day. I was single and, as of a year and a half before the Day, my older sister and I were orphans thanks to a drunk driver. Because of my travel, I didn't have any significant female. One attempt at a relationship after college cured me.

On the Day, I was in L.A. working on a project for the company. I was due to head back home after the weekend leaving L.A. on Sunday around noon. I was staying until Sunday to have a little free time and enjoy the California weather.

It was early in the morning when the first shock of the day went out on the news. The story, as it developed, was bad for Florida but I knew no one in that state. I cared but had no personal stake in what happened. I went into work that morning. I talked with the home office in Richmond later and they had heard nothing to alarm them there. We had a branch office in Miami and it no longer answered in any way. That did worry them but there was little, if anything, they could do from Richmond and less that I could do while in California.

The day went on and little more information went out over the news outlets. The people there with me agreed that the evening news would bring more information. We then heard of the splitting of Florida and that the explosion had been nuclear in some way. Little more was heard until we heard Friday afternoon reports of people becoming sick and that a virus might have been released from the lab in Florida. The sickness spread rapidly and, on Saturday, the first reports of sickness in California surfaced. I began to worry then. On Sunday morning, I called to check on my flight and was told that it was canceled. Later that day, the local news said that all flights had been canceled until further notice. There had been a few crashes that were thought to be virus related.

Now I was stuck in L.A. with no way home sitting in a hotel room by myself. More people were getting sick including at the hotel. I had a rental car and went to a local gas station and filled up. I came back and parked at the hotel. I felt fine though, all about me, people were getting sick and dying.

Early that evening, I called my older sister who lived in North Carolina with her husband and baby. She felt fine but both her husband and their baby were sick. She said she had called the hospital. She was told they were overrun and to care for them at home. She was following the hospital's instructions though it hadn't helped any. She was worried. I commiserated and told her I would call tomorrow night.

I spent the day in the hotel watching television and reading. I always brought plenty of reading material with me on these trips. Sometimes, there was something to do and someone to do it with and, sometimes, there was nothing and no one. The news was worse. People were dying rapidly. The hotel was going downhill as the employees got sick. I stocked up on towels and went into the kitchen and cooked a lunch. No one else was around. I never saw another employee of the hotel from the prior evening. I gradually began to realize that things were getting really bad. I began to make plans for driving back to Richmond. It would be a long drive but I had made a few long ones in my time. I knew I could do it under normal conditions. I had a feeling that conditions were not going to be normal. I decided to wait a few days. Talking my sister that night, I told her what I knew and what I surmised. Both her husband's and baby's health were slowly sinking and she was scared. I didn't know what to tell her, so I listened and then finally told her that I would call again tomorrow evening.

Like I had for lunch and supper the night before, I had to make my own breakfast. I saw no sign that anyone had been in the kitchen since my supper the night before. After eating, I decided to check the rooms.

I went to the manager's office and found a master key card. I began on the first floor checking all the public rooms and found no one. I went up to the second floor and began to check rooms. Many of them had a person's personal possessions in them but no people.

I went to the third floor. There, I found the first bodies. A middle-aged couple was lying on the bed side by side dead. The smell was just beginning. I closed that door and continued on. I found two more dead people, some rooms with personal possessions but no people, and a few rooms had been unused.

The fourth and fifth floors yielded similar results. On the sixth floor, I heard a television when I got to that room. I knocked but there was no answer. I opened the door and went in. An attractive woman in her thirties was lying on the bed in a tee shirt and shorts dead. I turned the TV off and left.

I went through the rest of the rooms and found no one alive. A few looked like they might have died that night. In one room, the man died in a chair still trying to work on his computer. That was more dedication than my company was going to get from me!

The hotel was empty of live people except for me. It was time to think about moving on though that would mean a large step. I had met a few folks during my work at the client company but no one stood out.

I was going to my sister's house and then home.

Being a project manager, I decided to plan this. I had a car with a full gas tank, some clothes, about one hundred dollars in cash, and my credit cards. I had been watching television today and had heard the President's advisers talking about a three percent survival rate. That didn't look like what I was seeing. I began to watch out the window of my room looking for movement. I saw two cars that afternoon. I cooked another lonely supper and noticed that the fresh items were starting to go bad. It was time to leave. I talked to my sister that night. She was very upset. My nephew, her baby son, had died and her husband was very weak and failing rapidly. We talked a while. It was distressing but really all I could do was listen to her cry. She finally said she had to go. I told her I loved her and would call tomorrow evening. I had told her that I was going to leave in the morning for her house.

In the morning, I got up and had breakfast. I packed my clothes and carried my bag and my computer out to my car. There, I met my first problem. The safety gates were closed. I still had the master key card from the manager's office. It worked after I found the control. I pulled out and began to drive out of L.A. moving toward the east taking I-10 for a southerly route. I had checked weather.com and didn't like the more northerly route. I did not want to "play in the snow" on this trip. There was no traffic. I had the window down to hear but there was nothing. I even stopped and shut off the motor and still heard nothing except for the wind. It was strange, and lonely.