Chapter 11

I wanted to use the time that remained prior to my appointment with the Wizard to shore up the security for my ever growing little community as well as for a few other priorities. We split up responsibilities a bit and made good progress on several fronts.

Three of my original four, Dawn, Patty, and Becky worked with Jordan and the other women who had been working at the Omni. They went through the hotels inventory of food and other necessary items in an effort to determine what we needed to acquire in the immediate future. I let them know it was quite likely that our community would continue to accept new members and suggested that they consider this in their planning. The Omni has several restaurants in addition to its own kitchen facilities. There is also an attached mall with restaurants as well. Dawn and her cohorts took inventory of the food supplies in all of them.

Maureen compiled a list of medical supplies she thought might come in handy and recruited several women to visit two drugstores and a medical clinic that were close to the hotel. I sent Tara, Teri, and Teri's daughters with Maureen's group to serve as a security detail. This allowed Maureen's crew to concentrate on acquiring the necessary goods knowing that someone had their back. Even with this precaution I insisted that everyone who had a sidearm wear it.

I made a list of security and surveillance equipment I would need to fortify the hotel to my satisfaction. Of course one advantage of being in Charlotte again was the fact that I had lived here for many years. I knew exactly what electronics stores and warehouses would have what I needed. After gathering four others to come with me as security, and two more to help load things up, I went on a quick raiding mission to gather what was needed. Ezra and Gil would watch out for the safety of those who remained back at the hotel while I was away.

When we got to the little strip mall where one of the suppliers on my list was located we saw two RVs, a van, and three cars in the parking lot. I decided to circle around through the alley and forego the usual gruesome results that searching vehicles for survivors had been yielding. I had my tools for opening the metal door at the rear of the shop with me in the back of the Cherokee; the bolt cutters and my crowbar did the job after I added the necessary elbow grease.

Our first stop was an electronics shop that sold computers, surveillance equipment, and spy gear. I loaded up the cargo van we had brought with us from the hotel with all kinds of goodies I thought might come in handy in my efforts to secure the hotel. Stephanie and Emily worked alongside me taking turns to operate the hand cart when we had a load ready for the van. Rhonda, Penny, Shawna, and Grace stood watch. Rhonda took up position towards the front of the store, Grace at the back, with Penny and Shawna keeping watch over our vehicles.

The second stop my little troupe made netted us a pair of Hilti guns and accompanying supplies. This would make it a lot easier to install some fencing and barricades that I planned to put in place around the hotel. We also found the fencing material I wanted at this warehouse. I used a forklift to load it all up onto the back of a flatbed delivery truck and drove off with it.

Our third and final stop probably seemed a bit odd to the women who had accompanied me. When we pulled into the parking lot of the Pet Smart store my little radio quickly came to life with many questions from the female contingent of our expedition. I shared Ezra's suggestion that we see if there might be some useful and trainable dogs to help with our security. If we had any success following up on his suggestion we would need some supplies. I expected to encounter a rather sad and smelly situation when we walked through the unlocked doors of the store. Instead we found one very shocked and startled young woman who was so happy and overjoyed to see us she couldn't stop jumping up and down for quite a while. When she finally calmed down enough to talk we learned that her name was Anjali.

Anjali was a beautiful young woman whose parents had migrated to the U.S. from India before she was born. She was quite petite except for her unusually large breasts and pleasantly rounded derriere. Her flawless complexion, sparkling brown eyes, smiling face, and silky black hair added to the overall impression of teenage beauty personified and Mr. Dicky took immediate notice of her. Soon I had seven very aroused women on my hands! I had to struggle to avoid things getting completely out of hand and what a difficult thing that was for me to do! If Ezra and Moon Blossom hadn't given me some heads up on the situation, my "Little Head" would have been doing all of the thinking I'm afraid!

As it was it took me some time to calm everyone down, especially myself. It turned out that Anjali usually came to work after her classes at the nearby high school were over for the day. Her mom was supposed to pick her up after her shift was over; but one day she just never showed up and when Anjali called her house no one answered the phone. Things had gotten worse after that. That same night most of the other employees in the store died with the others following the next morning.

Anjali had found herself completely alone except for the company of the animals in the store which she had been caring for. She had kept herself alive by raiding the food in the refrigerators of the two little restaurants in the shopping center the Pet Smart was located at. After the third day she had gathered the few useful things she had found while rummaging through the other stores and dragged them back to the pet store making several trips to do so. It wasn't long after that she had her first encounter with four hungry dogs that tried to attack her. When she saw them running towards her Anjali just dropped what she was carrying and ran towards the familiar confines of the pet store as fast as her legs would carry her. She felt luck to have made it back into the safety of the store before the dogs got her and since that time the lonely young woman had been too terrified to venture out of the store.

The dogs, cats, and birds had seemed unaffected by the plague and as Anjali went about caring for them each day she was beginning to wonder what terrible thing she had done to be cursed as the last human left alive to endure the remainder of her life in loneliness - and then we had appeared on the scene!

We told her about our situation and why we had come to the store. She was a wealth of useful information and seemed to really know her way around all of the animals in the store. This particular store had about a dozen young dogs, a handful of cats, quite a few birds, not much in the way of snakes and other reptiles, and a small section of fish. The store's side business of providing kennel and dog grooming services turned out to be more useful to us since there were about a dozen large dogs that had been left at the store whose owners never returned to claim them after the plague hit.

I got on the radio with Gil and we talked things over for a few minutes. Anjali felt torn between her love of the animals and taking care of their needs and her desire to come and stay with us. Gil thought that it was quite likely that we would need to have one or two teams go out every morning in one of the higher four wheel drive SUVs to drive around the vicinity and look for survivors and other useful things we might need to scavenge. He suggested that Anjali could be dropped off with two or three others as protection. She could take care of the animals needs and be picked up and returned to the hotel a few hours later. His plan seemed to be for the best, especially for the short term.

Grace and Rhonda helped her get the few things she wanted to bring into one of the vehicles while we were waiting for the two other vehicles Gil was sending our way. When they arrived Anjali made herself useful once again and quickly helped get two of the dogs into each of our six vehicles. Unlike the wild dogs that we had encountered, these animals had been cared for and had never had to endure prolonged bouts of hunger. They seemed happy to have more human contact and were not in the least bit threatening towards us.

When we returned to the hotel Anjali was quite excited to meet yet more survivors. I didn't know whether I should hope that she would become attracted to one of the other two men in our group or jealously guard her for my own. I needn't have worried about it since she turned out to be like my shadow - always nearby and within sight.

Maureen and her crew had met with success for the most part. She had shown just how smart and well organized of a person she was once again. The Omni is connected to the Overstreet Mall and quite a few other buildings by the Overstreet Mall Walkway and Maureen made good use of this fact. She had her team start by visiting the medical clinics, doctors' offices, and the drugstore that could be reached via the connecting walkway. This allowed them to avoid going outside where dogs would be more likely to be an issue. She snagged three of the hotels luggage carriers to cart the supplies back on. During her trip Maureen couldn't help but wonder what other useful things they might find within the confines of these interconnected buildings.

Tara had been shopping here on occasion and remembered the opening of the Bank of America building as well as the Hearst Tower. There had been quite a lot of luxury condominiums in some of these buildings and she began to mention the possibility of finding other survivors as well as the danger that hungry pets might pose. She was especially alert as they crossed wide open spaces on foot with no car or truck to dive into for protection should the need arise.

The foray had met with only a few problems such as locked doors that had to be opened by drilling out the locks. Thing started to get into a routine: gain access, shut off the alarm if necessary, scavenge for useful medical supplies and implements - especially those on Maureen's list, load them onto the cart, and then close the main doors when it was time to leave.

One of the clinics they visited held an extra surprise: Dr. Phoebe Rinnan. Phoebe had specialized in obstetrics and gynecology. The thirty three year old redhead was very pleased to run into Maureen and her troupe. Not only was Phoebe happy to hear of an organized community gathering in the Omni, but she had run into a few other survivors in the immediate vicinity and had been staying in touch with them. All told, she had a list of thirteen other survivors who were living in the condominiums in her building. Except for one man, all of the survivors were females between the ages of twenty to forty. Maureen called me on the radio with her discovery and I encouraged her to invite Phoebe and her friends to join us for dinner at about six thirty in the evening.

Gil had kept a watch on things back at the Omni while I was out and Drew and Ezra had undertaken a little project of their own. Drew seemed to connect with the big cat and a strong friendship had formed in the day or so they'd been around each other. They were concerned about the problem of the dog carcasses littering the streets around the hotel. While the bodies might serve as a form of deterrent to other dogs, they would soon present a health risk if not disposed of properly. Drew took a pair of binoculars and went to the top floor of the tower accompanied by Ezra. Looking down onto the surrounding streets they were able to get a fair idea of how many dead animals they had to deal with. They also wanted to see if any other dog packs were in the area.

While scanning for dog packs, Drew spotted quite a bit of heavy equipment about a mile or so from the hotel. After examining his find as best he could with the binoculars Drew assumed the equipment must have just been abandoned when the plague struck. Regardless of what it had been being used for, Drew saw two pieces of equipment that he thought might be of use in disposing of the dead bodies: a front loader and a dump truck. Drew had spent three summers working on heavy construction projects for his Uncle's firm and was confident that he could make good use of the equipment.

With Ezra's help, Drew was able to convince Gil that his idea was worth pursuing. Gil sent three other gun toting members of our community along for the ride to keep Drew safe. He was already making good progress removing the bodies by the time the rest of us began to return to the hotel.