Survivors – A Novel of the Coming Collapse

Life at the Four Families compound in Prescott continued in a routine to the point of monotony. Without electricity, just hand-washing the laundry was a huge chore. And there was plenty of other hard work, mainly involving gardening and firewood. Their evenings were short and fairly quiet. Tuesday and Thursday nights were “old radio show nights” at Doctor K.’s house. Dr. Karvalich had more than a thousand old radio shows on a set of twenty-six CD-ROMs in MP3 format. He had bought the collection through eBay several years before the Crunch for less than thirty dollars. These were played on his laptop. The most popular shows were comedies like Fibber McGee amp; Mollie and old science fiction and drama shows like Dimension X and Suspense.

Saturday nights were movie nights, with movies on DVDs played on Alex’s seventeen-inch screen MacBook laptop.

Blair Atholl, Belize April, the Second Year

Motoring over to the Cay took only a few minutes. The village of Blair Atholl looked small. There was one fancy estate development to the south, at Bella Maya, and a collection of modest tin-roofed houses to the north, in the town of Blair Atholl itself. In between was a sign that said “Blair Holiday Cottages.” Since that sounded vaguely English, Carston steered toward it. They pulled up to the dock and were greeted by a rotund, aging English ex-pat named Peter Ivens. Ten minutes of quizzing Ivens made it clear that customs officials rarely checked this end of the lagoon, that the only reported troubles in Belize were near the Guatemalan border, and that he would be willing to store Laine’s baggage for a nominal fee.

After depositing Andy’s panniers and duffels on the dock, Simms shook Andy’s hand firmly and said, “Well . . . safe home, Andrew.”

“The Lord be with you, Skipper.”

He spent the next half hour talking with Peter Ivens, getting up to speed about the situation in Belize and Guatemala. He concluded that Belize was fairly stable but that Guatemala was in a state of crisis. Several key government officials in Guatemala, Ivens said, had fled the country-rumor had it for Honduras-and had hence left a power vacuum. Criminal gangs and Communist rebels had commenced wholesale violence. Thousands of Guatemalan refugees and bandits were crossing into Belize, Mexico, and Honduras.

Andy summarized his situation for Ivens. He mentioned that he had “seen the bright lights of Placentia” and said that he had “made entry into the country,” so the man assumed that Laine had cleared customs. Andy asked if there were any ships likely bound for the Gulf coast of the U.S. “Not a chance,” the man said bluntly. “From all reports, Belize is strictly a ‘to’ destination, since everything in all directions is substantially more risky. You’re sitting in the safe haven. You should think about staying here until things sort themselves out.”

Then Laine asked about buses heading to the Yucatan. Those, he was told, had all been suspended because of the Honduran and Guatemalan refugee situation.

“Is there somewhere I could rent a car?” Andy asked. The man chuckled in reply and said, “My boy, getting a hired car was difficult in most parts of Belize even before this crisis. Even if you got to Orange Walk or Belize City, I have terrible doubts that you’d even be able to hire a moped, much less a car. The news on the radio is that they’ve been having problems with midnight flits. Same with boat rentals. People are petrified of renting out boats or anything on wheels because, sure enough, they’ll end up in Mexico or Honduras, never to be seen again. Cars and lorries are getting stolen left and right these days, so you can’t blame the firms for refusing to hire them out.”

“Could I hire you to drive me up to the Mexican border?”

“Sorry, no. Fuel is nigh on irreplaceable at present. I can’t spare any. I’ve drained all the petrol from my utility and hidden the cans back in the jungle. If they steal my vehicle, they won’t get more than a quarter of a mile down the road.”

Laine pondered that for a moment and then asked, “Do you know anyone who might have a bicycle or a horse that’s for sale?”

“No, but you might go and make inquiries with some of the landholders at Stann Creek. They’ve lots of horses there.”

“Okay.” Laine gestured to his baggage and said, “Give me a few minutes to organize this gear.” Ivens nodded and sauntered off to his office. Andy sat near the end of the dock and sorted his baggage. The dock sat below a set of stairs from the walkway and office above, so he felt safely out of sight.