Once again, we took ghastly pictures of each of the dead. Most of them looking younger than 18 but there was one with gray hair. They were all tattooed and clearly, Blods; the largest gang, and perhaps, the bloodiest, in the LA area. Derek drove the tank down again and pushed the shredded dump truck off the street as another warning to anyone attempting to enter our compound with any intent of violence.

Derek had an idea watching us taking the pictures. "I think we should print some of these pictures and tape them to the vehicles. Show them what happens when they raid us."

Wondah, who had been resetting another Claymore mine to replace the one used the night before, turned around and yelled… "No, no, nooo… Derek! The Blods are a very tight organization. They double down when any member of their gang is killed, no matter what it takes, they seek revenge. Best to just leave them not wanting to waste any more lives trying to raid us. We don't want them retaliating. And don't any of you put those pictures on the Internet! It could bring hell down on us."

Derek reneged. "Damn, you're smart, Wondah! And, are always right. That's what I like about you." He smirked and made a stupid looking funny face at her.

Next, came the grisly task of taking the bodies all the way back past the estate to where we had left the others. Fast becoming a boneyard from all of the scavengers' action. Some flies were still there, and began immediately attacking the blood on the bodies. Daphne watched my truck and trailer pass, wondering if she would keep seeing this continue behind her backyard she was trying to make beautiful again with very little water. Unfortunately, we had no other choice.

With that most necessary task over, I grabbed Ray and we drove on down to the Fish Market to see if there were any more boats bringing fish and seafood to the port. My idea rolling around in my head I didn't even mention to Ray on the way, but continued to ponder.

Once again, there were no fish in the market and I had to call out Van Nguyen from hiding. When he finally came out he ran up to me and hugged me exclaiming…

"Drake! So glad you're here. It has been terrible! We've been raided every night. Had to hide while they looked everywhere for food. I would leave a little seafood out in hopes to appease them, but it no good… No good at all…" He was crying, but burst out again, "And the worst, that frickin' bunch  with a dump truck, smashing everything for nothin'!"

I tried to console him. "I know, I know. They've been coming to us, too. I have good news for you. We destroyed a dump truck last night, unless there is another one. You need to have defenses like we have. Starting tomorrow, I will put my people helping your people block off the entrance to the market the way we have blocked off our street. Do you think you can handle more people in the market and hotel?"

With the good news, Van quickly regained his composure. "We have about 25 people in the hotel now with my son and me; mostly fishermen and their families like us. We have two other boats besides mine who are out fishing right now. But we don't have any food or water except fish and seafood, so we have been trapping seagulls, pigeons and even rats, to eat. The rats are surprisingly tasty." He finally smiled, showing his crooked teeth. "But we have no fresh greens and are running out of vegetables, do you?"

"Only a few from our gardens we brought because we knew you would ask. But I'm forming a plan of all of these warehouses here at the port and your hotel becoming self-sustaining and thriving again."

"Really! Drake, you are a genius! How do you know all this?"

"Derek and I have been educating ourselves for this work since we were very young. We want to survive as much as you do. But we need to all work together to get back to where we were before the pandemic. How about turning the port into a village?"

"Sounds good, but is it possible?"

"Only if we all work together. For now, everyone will have to work for food and water."

Ray, who had been silently watching and listening chimed in. "From what I've seen Derek and Drake do already, anything's possible. We just have to reengineer everything. I want to help you farm from your warehouse rooftops."

"But we need water? Lots of water we don't have?"

I had an answer for that. "The first thing I see is the need for security. Once we fix that, we will get a crane from a construction job downtown and put a water tower on your hotel roof. And we will add as much solar and wind power as we can, to keep you powered during the worst conditions. Especially your cold storage and frozen food warehouses. It will be a huge undertaking and need a lot of people."

"I didn't tell you before, Drake, but like you, during the day over a hundred of our customers have, occasionally, come by and asked for fish and seafood. They have been giving us food and fruit but very little water. They are also hungry and many have asked about the hotel. I couldn't tell them we could support them. Should I?"

"Only if you absolutely trust them. I would suggest that we have them all complete a simple one page contract stating they will help build the village in exchange for food and housing that they would help produce. That's all. A simple contract. But they would have to be interviewed, first. Questioned. We wouldn't want to have any gang members, usually easily spotted by their tattoos, entering our community.”

"But water, where will you get the water for the tower? The only place we been able to get water from is the ship."

"The ship? One of your fishing boats has water?"

"No, that big ship over there. Rambler of the Seas. They a big customer when they filled up their on board cold storage with fresh seafood we provided them. They have been so kind to give us water when we need it. Do you want to talk to the captain… ah… First mate?"

"I sure do. What's his name? What's his phone number?

Van answered, "Jens Jensen." And gave me his cell phone number.

I dialed it and left the speaker on. A young blue-eyed blonde man with a strong accent in a crisp white uniform with blue lapels answered. "Hello, this is Jens, if you're calling for a cruise, forget it. Otherwise, what do you want?" He looked and sounded annoyed.

"This is Drake Hutchins, I'm here with Van Nguyen." I swung the phone around so Van was in the picture as well as Ray and Quoc waiting patiently, listening to us talking. "I thought your ship was empty because I haven't seen any movement there a couple of times when we came by to visit our old friend and make arrangements for getting seafood in exchange for us helping this little fishing community out."

"That's noble of you, but I see things rather hopeless. We have been afraid those pirates every night would find a way, with simple grappling hooks, to climb up into our ship and kill us all for what we have here. We have no real weapons and have to make the ship look like it's uninhabited."

"That's too bad. But I'm here to change it. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to have some of my people come here and block off the entrance to the fish market and make it monitored electronically the way you monitor the ship. And, I will bring confiscated arms, mostly AR-15s we have confiscated from those gang members we have killed, for your protection. In fact, I can give you a couple of them with ammunition today. How many people do you have?"

"The virus was devastating. We lost our captain and his wife and so many others. When it hit the ship, we were about to set sail for a 21 day journey with 5000 passengers and 1500 crew. The passengers never came or left right after they arrived, many of them sick already. Most of my crew from the Los Angeles area left that day and the rest we nursed as almost everyone got sick. Until they died and we buried them right here, at sea, without going to sea." He halted. We could see the anguish on his face…

Jens continued, "We are now only 46 crew members trying desperately to maintain the ship and keep our food from spoiling while shutting off much of the ship to save running our generators too much. It has been a struggle, but I'm coping and that's about all. I have been in touch with corporate in Denmark. But every ship is experiencing the same problem and some have failed already."

"Okay, we are all in the same boat, and I don't mean, your ship. We all have to survive, together. And saving the Rambler for the future would be a great idea. A great morale booster. So… I will double down with my skeleton crew to make you secure so you can leave the ship and help create what I want to create here, a village for all of us starting over in Los Angeles."

"That's courageous and we'll help any way we can." His demeanor changed greatly from before. A glimmer of hope crossed his tanned fair face.

"Van tells me you have water. Is that true ?"

"Yes, we recycle water here on the ship for bathing purposes and desalinate seawater for additional water while at sea. We can't do it here. Our water intakes would damage local sea life even with their screens."

"Is your recycled water drinkable? Yes, but we recommend boiling before drinking."

"That's good news. I was hoping to put in a water system to provide water pressure for the village. If you have someone who can help us create freshwater from seawater, it would be wonderful."

"We have two engineers who survived. Once we are more stable, I'm sure working with your people we may be able to make a plant for providing freshwater from seawater right here at the port. We are unable to do that right now because of so many bodies in the water contaminating it. But those bodies are providing a lot of food for sharks, crabs, mollusks and other seafood predators and scavengers. We have been catching big fish from the other side where no one can see us fishing. It helps us pass the time and provide us with fresh fish."

"Enough talk. Can we meet you and some of your crew? I want to give you two AR-15s, some ammo and some grenades for now. More will be coming tomorrow."

"Okay, give us some time. We have to take the stairs without the elevators running."

I drove Van and us to where he usually met with Jens on the dock. A door opened from the side of the ship a little higher than the dock and a ramp came out of the ship and onto the dock. Jens Jensen in pristine full uniform, followed by four others, came off the ship and he introduced us to the third and fourth mates, the third being a beautiful young blonde woman, Dani Steffensen and the fourth, a fortyish hardy experienced seafarer, Jahn Johannsen. Then, there were two engineers, Klauss Reinhart, the ship's middle-aged chief engineer and Hans Hansen, the ship's water resource engineer. Just a bit older than me with a very light blonde beard.

I was amazed at their credentials. Suddenly, from out of the opening came several carts pushed by crew members who were obviously from different parts of the world by simply seeing their smiling faces. The carts were loaded with food of all kinds we were in desperate need of on our street. I gladly accepted the gift from the now, humbly accepted captain of the ship and his crew and promised them we would provide them with fresh vegetables and greens as we continued to expand our gardens and help build gardens right here in the port. I told him I hoped would become a sustainable village.

We returned home with Ray and I talking about what we needed to start doing right away to make the dream I had been mulling over for some time around in my mind come to fruition. I had a lot to tell the other ones at lunch. Our little enclave was just the start of what I felt would be great for the city to recover from where it started eons before. On the beach where the Los Angeles River met the Pacific before they had names. The Los Angeles and other rivers nearby were dried up now, but possibly could flow again.

But when we arrived at lunch, we were met with sadness rather than joy. Selma, Hector Lopez's 17-year-old daughter of the sheet rock contractor who was living in the house closest to our defenses had come to the Rosenberg house asking for help just after we left.

During the raid, Hector and his son, Juan, 16, went outside and were the first to engage the intruders. Selma stayed inside with the pistol when terrific firing began. When it died down and they didn't come back, she wept and hid, not hearing us when we cleared the street, generally not talking too much.

But in the morning, she ventured out and found her father badly wounded but alive and her brother, dead. Less than 15 minutes after we had left for the port everyone converged on the home, carried Hector back to Martha to remove five bullets from his body and bury Juan by the garden they had started. Buried him in a quickly made wood box so that Hector, when well again, could decide what to do with his son.

I was doubly sad because Hector and his kids were doing a great job in restoring the Rodney Owens house and were getting ready to move back there where there were a lot of amenities that Rodney had built in as a prepper. If only they had, sigh. If only…

I told everyone gathered I had good news, too. I told them I wanted everyone to finish whatever work they were doing today and think about what they would do if we all went down to the port and began securing it in the next couple of days. Gary and Victor protested. Gary, especially…

"Come on, Drake! Why do you have to be so interested in the port? We got a lot of plumbing to do here before we finish getting water to everyone on the street. Why drop everything now to go down there and help them?"

"You can stay here if you like. But I'd like to introduce you to my plans for the village there. We could easily fill up the street with folks in the next month and be cozy. But in order for us to have a steady supply of seafood and fish, we will have to rely on the market in a place very vulnerable right now.

There are also hundreds of people, maybe a thousand or more, dying of thirst every day, starving out there in the city. Good people we can help, like you. Come down there with me tomorrow morning and return in the afternoon. That's all I ask. We will find other plumbers who could do the work there and here. But I wanted you to step up to the planning with me."

Victor replied. "I see what you mean, boss. I tend to like your big plans, even though they mean a hell of a lot of work for me." He laughed. The first warmth that had entered the room so far. There was twittering in the background.

Before everyone finished eating and heading back to their various work, the room was buzzing with chatter. Martha appeared and told everyone she had removed all of the bullets from Hector. He was alive but would need several days rest and recuperation before attempting to be up and around. In the meantime, Selma was going to give him 24 hour daily attention. Everyone cheered.

Drake and I, along with Wondah and Melody who had both become indispensable in planning sat down together to plan what we would start to do the next morning. It was an immense task, unlike barricading our street, there were many streets to the west of the fish market where marauders could come from. We decided to begin with the intersection of Harbor Boulevard and Miner Street, the most likely direction they would come from off Cal 47. Additionally, we would block off the entrance to the World Cruise Center to help provide some initial security for the Rambler captain and his crew. Even that was a tall order. The port was vast and there were a lot of potential places for finding food, fuel and materials in the countless tanks, warehouses and shipping containers that remained unopened or vandalized.

Daphne, once again, invited me to spend the evening with her, but I declined. Not that I didn't want to go, but the ideas spinning around in my head were nearly overwhelming and I just needed to rest. Melody returned after helping Selma with tending to Hector and his wounds. Both of us slept fitfully. Our separate worries overcoming our desire for the night. We slept off and on, thinking of the coming day.

Copyright 2023 © Ronald W. Hull

6/20/23