The

  apartment directly to the right of mine had very little to speak of.

  Nothing more than a couple drawers full of tattered clothing that

  looked like they might belong to a middle aged woman and a young

  child. The fridge was empty except for a jug of milk, a squeezy

  bottle of lemon juice, and a mostly rotten tomato. The date on the

  milk was a few days past due, but after opening it up it didn’t

  smell too bad, maybe just the distant whiff of something starting to

  go off. I didn’t think I could drink a gallon of milk, especially

  one on the edge of going rotten, with my stomach sometimes being very

  sensitive, but it felt like a terrible waste to just leave it. I

  vaguely recalled that there was a way to make a cheese using an acid.

  I didn’t know the ratios, but I had the milk and lemon juice

  already and it would go to waste either way if I messed it up.

  Even though the tomato was definitely well past being safe to eat,

  it was an exciting find. The seeds would almost certainly have a

  chance of being viable and tomatoes could grow fine in a container

  garden environment. It would be simple enough as picking out the

  seeds, getting them planted into containers and then babying them

  until I hopefully got some seedlings. It would not by any means solve

  my food needs but it was a huge step in the right direction.

  With my brain already whirling up to recall all my old knowledge

  of basic greenhouse gardening, the fact that I already had viable

  seeds smacked me directly upside the head. I had been staring at the

  bag of dried beans every time I went to make food because I hated the

  long process of cooking them, but I was forgetting that they were a

  perfectly viable seed. I felt really silly as I packed up the mushy

  tomato into an empty sandwich bag. I was pretty sure that almost

  everyone had done that experiment when they were little in school

  where everyone got their own little handful of beans to put into the

  plastic bag with a wet paper towel to show the basics of how plants

  work. I wasn’t sure if it was the thick brain fog I lived with or

  just the fact that I had mostly worked with non-edible plants for

  most of my short career, but either way I could have already started

  my indoor garden instead of pining away and wishing.

  I was so excited with my find and revelation that I almost called

  off checking out the remaining four apartments. I wanted to get right

  into securing long term food, though I didn’t know if I would find

  something else that I could end up planting. Lentils were a common,

  cheap food for those in poverty and they could also be grown in their

  dried form, but there also could be any number of vegetables sitting

  in those fridges rotting away when they could be going to good use.

  To speed up going through the rest of the hallway, I went down the

  hall methodically gently trying the door handles, then waiting and

  listening, then opening them with the thin knife and taking a peek

  inside. I was already pretty certain they were all empty, but pushing

  open the doors each time and them having no chain still made me

  exhale in relief.

  The first seemed to have been cleared out by whomever had lived

  there, obviously they had decided to flee and they had taken pretty

  much everything other than their pots and pans, decorations, and bed

  linens. The pots and pans I could take and put out on the fire escape

  for more water if I couldn’t find anything big to act as a water

  collection point, but for now it wasn’t a worthwhile use of my

  energy.

  The next apartment seemed too perfectly preserved and organized.

  It looked like someone had stepped out for the day and just never

  made it back. There was still a moderate amount of various food in

  the fridge and cupboards and it seemed as though whomever had lived

  here might have been an older person judging by the various amounts

  of supplements and prescription medication that I only vaguely

  recognized spread out on the kitchen table. It looked like they had

  been planning on setting up their monthly medication planner and they

  had set out all they needed to fill up each individual day when they

  returned home. Most of the medication I didn’t know, but there were

  a couple anti-inflammatories that I had heard in passing as options

  for me. They wouldn’t replace the powerful pain killers that the

  man had swallowed, but they would hopefully help a little bit.

  It felt so bad to see all of it as a boon. I couldn’t ignore the

  likely, glaring, reason why the person who lived here had never come

  back. They probably struggled with arthritis and there was a wooden

  cane leaning against the side of the couch. I wished and hoped that

  maybe their family had came to get them or they found some place safe

  while they were out, but I knew the odds were much more in the favor

  of them having come to a much more terrible end.

  There was a nagging at the back of my mind that was becoming

  louder each time I entered into what used to be someone else’s

  private space. I was profiting from other people’s misfortune.

  Either people were leaving behind useful items in the trade off of

  escaping or they simply were now dead and I was benefitting from

  their demise. I knew that it was useless and even dangerous to let

  myself get caught up in a moral struggle. Morals and ethics had to go

  out the window and I had to be selfish. Still, looking down at the

  lined up row of pills and seeing the pictures of happy grandchildren

  in the frame by the couch was still like a gut punch. This was all

  that was left of someone’s life and I was looting it.

  I continued searching to get my mind off the things I could not

  change and additionally picked up some arthritis cream from the

  bathroom cabinet along with over the counter pain killers. I left the

  food in the fridge where it was for now, with the hallway door tied

  shut I wasn’t worried about it going anywhere. Likewise I left the

  medication that I didn’t know what it did and only took what I

  could use, then I moved onto the second to the last apartment.

  A bag of potatoes and onions were added to my backpack, but the

  apartment overall was a bust with very little aside from a lot of

  clothing. It didn’t look like someone had rushed away, but it

  didn’t look very lived in either. I wasn’t willing to try to

  think any further into what might have happened to who lived here, I

  had already depressed myself enough for one day and decided to move

  on.

  The last apartment seemed completely normal, though suspiciously

  very empty, like it was only staged to look like someone lived there.

  The living room was devoid of any sort of entertainment with no TV,

  books, magazines, or even any sort of hobby, and the kitchen area had

  no food except for a couple of cheap cans of beer in the fridge. Even

  the cupboards were bare and there wasn’t a sign that any food had

  ever been there. Wondering if it were possible that there had been a

  vacancy, I went down the short hallway to check the bedroom and it

  suddenly all clicked into place.

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  The bedroom was not a bedroom at all, instead it was a full on

  illegal marijuana growing operation. I stood, stunned, in the hallway

  as I was faced with beds of marijuana, grow lights, and a makeshift

  irrigation system. For a moment excitement coursed through me, but

  then reality hit that it would end up being useless once the power

  went out. It was a shame, almost enough to bring me to tears, because

  if I could have found a way to keep the power on it would have been a

  godsend for making a lasting garden. I sighed heavily as I considered

  what I could take and salvage from the set up. There was plenty of

  plastic sheeting, funnels, plastic tubing, and large plastic

  containers. With this I could easily set up my water collection.

  It felt like too much of a shame to dismantle the system, so I

  started out by only taking the loose parts that were being stored in

  the closet in the room, which netted me a couple funnels, a long

  length of tubing, a folded up plastic sheet about the size of a

  bedsheet, and a large empty container.

  As I worked to pack everything so it was easy to carry, I keep

  going back to staring at the growing system and admiring how well the

  plants seemed to be doing with it. I couldn’t be sure when the

  power would go out, it could have been right that second or it could

  be months from now. In the meantime, I didn’t think it would hurt

  to start my seedlings in here and then just move them over when the

  power cut. In fact, it would likely be much more successful and be

  hands off when I wasn’t feeling well enough to tend a garden.

  I dropped off the equipment and other gathered items onto the

  floor next to my window and then retrieved the bagged tomato and my

  bag of beans. My mind was still fuzzy on what the best way to start

  seedlings would be, so I decided to split the difference and I cut

  the tomato in half and took only a handful of beans along with the

  bags of potatoes and onions with me back to the last apartment. There

  I pulled up two of the containers of existing plants and tossed them

  aside and placed pieces of the tomato on one side of the first

  container and beans on the other. There was enough space to place six

  little tomatoes and a dozen beans, so I had high hopes that

  statistically something would end up growing.

  In the remaining container I planted four of the smaller potatoes

  and three of the onions. I didn’t have a lot of hope in the

  potatoes doing much, I was pretty sure I remembered that they needed

  a decent amount of space to really produce, but I had some minor

  hopes for the onions and if nothing else I could use the onion greens

  as they grew. Taking a step back, the corner of my mouth twitched at

  the humor of me taking over an illegal marijuana farm to start a

  survival garden. I felt there was some kind of joke I could make, but

  there was both no one with me to appreciate it and I was already

  getting far too fuzzy in my thoughts to fully form it. Still, it felt

  a little nice to know that life could still have a little but of

  humor in it, even during the apocalypse.

  Back in my apartment I started on the longer route of moistening

  paper towels, pulling out the individual tomato seeds, and putting

  both the beans and tomatoes into bags and then returning to the grow

  lights so they could get that little boost since my window did not

  get very much natural light thanks to being surrounded by tall

  buildings. The rest of the potatoes and onions I sat aside and would

  deal with later, either by eating or trying to plant a different way

  if these didn’t work.

  I felt accomplished but tired, though I couldn’t let myself be

  done just yet. I moved back in the various partially full containers

  I had set out from the day before and stood back to ponder how to

  work the water system. I did not have the energy reserves to make

  something complicated, but I also didn’t want to put it off in case

  I missed much more rain. In theory I could take time to make it

  pretty sturdy and reliable, but I was already feeling my eyelids want

  to half close and I was fantasizing about taking both acetaminophen

  and ibuprofen and going to bed. I had maybe another half hour or so

  if I pushed to get things done, then it would be time to feed myself

  leftover rice and beans and I would be passed out before I knew it.

  Nothing had to be permanent though, I could change it, so makeshift

  would do.

  Climbing out of the window really reminded me just how stiff and

  inflexible my joints had become. The cracks and pops of my knees and

  hips felt like they echoed into the alleyway and I stopped to panic

  about maybe that would be enough to attract zombie attention. I held

  my breath and waited and I could hear some shuffling somewhere below,

  but it sounded random and not coming towards me so I continued out of

  the window with the large plastic tarp in my hands. Being outside

  since the first time it happened, the fresh air felt amazing and I

  happily breathed in deeply.

  Perhaps against better judgement I leaned over the railing to see

  down to the bottom. Usually the alley was just a place for people to

  toss their trash into the large bins and often people left suspicious

  mattresses and couches, but now I could make out the jerky movement

  of a handful of zombies shuffling up and down the alley, seemingly

  without any direction or purpose. They stepped on and through several

  dead bodies in various states. I was glad for the slightly cooler

  days as the smell was not as pungent as it could have been if it was

  summer. Still it was sickly sweet in a way that immediately made me

  want to stop looking at the scene. Some of them looked to have been

  completely torn apart, others laying in large blood splats that made

  me sick to think about.

  I hadn’t considered how many people would choose to go out on

  their own terms, but I didn’t need to think hard to figure out what

  some people had decided to do. I really couldn’t blame them, if I

  hadn’t already dealt with going through the grief of having to face

  the rest of my life being not what I imagined it to be and infinitely

  harder, I might have made a similar choice. With that thought in my

  mind I quickly stepped away from the railing and pressed my back

  against the side of the building suddenly feeling very scared of the

  heights.

  Motivated to get off the fire escape as quickly as possible I tied

  up the four corners of the sheet to the bottom of the next level of

  the fires escape and generally shaped the sheet so that it sloped

  down towards my window. With zip ties and a lot of cursing I gathered

  up and attached the end of the sheet to the large side of a funnel

  and then plugged the funnel into plastic tubing. The set up was by no

  means waterproof, but it seem like it would gather water, generally

  direct it to the funnel, then the plastic tubing could fit under the

  window if it was left open a crack and I could re-barricade the

  window enough so it would be tough to open. Back inside I re-secured

  the window and placed the end of the tubing into the plastic tub. I

  wouldn’t know how well it worked until it rained again, but I

  couldn’t see how I wouldn’t get a least a little water.

  Satisfied I had done enough for now, I ate my cold dinner and

  curled into bed after refraining from taking more than the

  recommended dose of pain killers. It was going to be another sore day

  tomorrow, but at least I was making progress. In that regard not much

  about my life had changed. I just kept having to move forward and

  make the best out of what I had.