The news has come, the outbreak is real. From what I’ve gathered, the disease spreads through the air and everyone is advised to stay at home, stay out of the infected. The symptoms of the infection are blood and exudate coming out from both eyes, ears, nostrils and mouth. It also said that the infected experienced an excruciating headache, and extreme sense of hunger. Once infection starts, a fever follows, headache, then excessive hunger. Most individuals often resort to self-harm to alleviate the pain like scratching their faces and upper body. What scares me the most is that they are capable of running towards their prey. The mechanism itself is still being studied, but general consensus says that it came from a virus. One source says it came from space, another says it came from the melted Siberian permafrost, no one really sure, no study ever comes out, most likely never will.
There are at least two million people living in Manhattan, then commuters add more than 2.2 million people to the island during workdays. It is possible the outbreak happened during peak hours, and hundreds of thousands were exposed to it, making public spaces and the subway unsafe. I was lucky enough that I was working from home the day it happened. I immediately barricaded my door with the 2x4 planks that I have, barricaded the fire escape ladders from the balcony using plywoods, stored as much water as I could get, and went into silent mode, checking up on supply, reading the manuals, over and over again.
I counted my food supplies again today. Based on Poverty Prepping about food storing, I don’t just store them, I eat them and rotate them. What that means is that as you build up your supply of emergency food, use the oldest things first and put newer things behind them, or best known as the FIFO system (First In, First Out). This keeps the food rotated so that nothing gets old enough to become rancid or depleted in nutrition. For the past month, I’ve already eaten some of the rice stock and canned meats, I also added two sacks of 10kg flour for an additional food staple which I immediately sealed into Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers to keep out moisture and bugs, and then a crate of canned beans. I also added glass jars with lids as DIY food canning, which involves packing food into glass jars and heating them to a high temperature to kill microorganisms and create an airtight vacuum seal. I bought 2 crates of jars and a canning pot (water-bath) and pressure canners. Water-bath canner is for high-acid food items like fruits, pickles, tomatoes, and pressure canner is for low-acid foods like vegetables, meat, and soups. Both rely on propane/butane stove, and I bought about 4x20lb propane tanks to properly do the canning process.
The neighbors, the couple next door, all I’ve heard from there are loud hostilities and appliance-throwing arguments. The upstairs neighbor, directly above me, is inhabited by an old man, a friend of the landlord. I haven’t heard a step or anything from above since even before the outbreak, someone should probably check on him, not that I’m saying he could be dead, but dead people rotting as no one came to check on them has become a norm recently in major cities or metropolitan areas. Why would an old man rent the highest floor in the apartment? Knowing that there is no lift or elevator in the building. The other people from below the stairs that I know of from the third floor are an Indian family of 4 and a woman who I heard works as a waitress in the restaurant not far from here.
The second floor has one empty room and the next apartment are inhabited by a Mexican family of 3, their kid, Lucia (8) and her father, Diego (37) came to my apartment once offering a Tamales, it is a Mexican dish made from seasoned masa (corn dough) filled with shredded pork, chicken in salsa verde, or cheese and rajas (poblano peppers), wrapped in corn husks or banana leaves. Since I don’t eat pork, they already prepared the vegetarian version, with sweet corn kernels, sugar, butter, and cinnamon. The wife, Sofia (35) works as a nurse while Diego works as a mechanic in an autoshop and sometimes a bus driver. Over the past year I’ve been living here, they are the closest people to me outside of co-workers, I shared pizza with them on Friday nights, I often brought over some food that I’ve got from the office to their apartment with the alibi that I couldn’t finish the food on my own.
The ground floor is split into two shops. First one is a smokeshop, or tobacco store front, all types of historic cigars to the fancy vapes you’d see with screens and LEDs. It is owned by K. Everyone called him K, singular K, I don’t know why, but that 54 year old man prefers his nickname rather than his own birth name. That is something I wouldn’t like to pry on someone and I never should. The other shop is a shoe repair shop and also a barber shop, run by a dude named Mateo, who is Diego’s younger brother (still older than me though). Mateo moved to the store vacating the apartment in front of Diego’s to save on rent. Mateo also has its own problem that seems so distant yet so friendly and cheerful when you look at the outside. Diego said Mateo lost his son in an accident and his wife couldn’t live with the guilt. Both K and Mateo seem like two troubled men, but you would get nothing out of them to try to get to know them deeper or get involved with. I wouldn’t push and be nosy, if I were them I’d rather be left alone.
The city fell within the first few hours of the outbreak, blockades and checkpoints at every turn since yesterday, martial law was enacted, curfew past 21:00, gunshots heard almost every few hours. I saw ferals chasing people, I heard their scream, loud banging on my door that I already barricaded, I don’t know who it was but it was neither Diego, Mateo or anyone I recognized. My neighbors went silent as well, they were either dead, infected, or keeping a low profile. I won’t risk it to find out, even if it sounds cruel, everyone in this apartment only cares for themselves, I rarely see my neighbors from the same floor or above. Not even my landlord cares to check on me, or at least check on the apartment he is leasing. Laying low is perhaps the best move I’ve got so far and will definitely stay that way for as long as I can.