Tales of the Derry Plague | Book 1 | LAST

by Anselmo, Ray

  Kelly almost dozed off on the rock, but shook herself, dressed and climbed back up, her muscles creaky from all the exercise, her skin stiff and slightly burnt. She found she wasn’t hungry, having filled up on the snack bars, chips and water. No, she was just exhausted from all that time on the road, not to mention with the raccoon and the late residents of Marin County. It was the most … natural thing in the world to go to bed early again …

  13

  JOURNAL

  … and apparently the most natural thing to sleep for twelve dreamless hours and wake up confused, wishing she’d taken a couple of aspirin before she’d conked out. Come to think, she’d forgotten to take her lithium as well. Yikes.

  Kelly tried to sit up, but it took her three attempts, and it hurt. Her legs hurt from the walking. Her arms hurt from carrying that bat eight miles. Her shoulders hurt from the backpack. Her skin hurt because she hadn’t had the good sense to put on sunscreen. Her stomach hurt from not having dinner the day before. None of them hurt very badly, but the cumulative effect was something else.

  She was already in the bathroom when her brain finally came online and reminded her there was no running water. Right – derp. To the backyard.

  Over the last week, she’d started adjusting to using any convenient place as her outhouse when needed. The Zen farm had pit toilets, and at the store there were plastic bags and the Bog of Eternal Stench to throw them in. But when she was anywhere else, including on the road yesterday, she’d found an appropriate tree or bush to fertilize. Home was the one sticking point – there were plants of various sizes in the back, but she was leery about literally fouling her own nest. More often, she walked next door to the Alvarezes’ backyard.

  Today, though, she was aching too much for the longer trip. She got a bottle of water, a washcloth, and grabbed Toni Matchick’s gardening trowel from the back porch. After doing what she needed to by the privet bush, she cleaned herself up and buried the result. It wasn’t ideal, but it would do. She really needed to dig a deep hole and build a privy over it, but … well, what did she know about carpentry? You hit a nail, it went into the wood, you hoped it stayed there. She didn’t think that would be enough to do it right.

  Returning to the house, she slumped into a chair at the dining room table. Wow, she was really worn out. She knew she needed to eat, to hydrate, to take something for the pain, but moving was an effort. What had happened to her?

  Boy, was that a dumb question. The end of the world as she knew it had happened to her. She’d cremated an entire town’s population. She’d prepared months worth of food. She’d siphoned entire tanks of gasoline. She’d established dominance over several dogs and one raccoon. She’d moved a dozen cars off the highway. She’d run from hither to yon for twelve straight days, doing things she never thought she’d have to. Tired? She was fortunate to have not broken down entirely!

  “I need a day off,” she whispered as if it was a revelation.

  Well, why didn’t she take one? Other than eating and medicating, she’d taken care of everything remotely urgent. She had food to last her at least until spring, and that wasn’t counting all the non-perishables at the store. The Accent’s gas tank was over half-full, and she had enough fuel to top it off and fill it at least once more even if she didn’t swipe another drop. Everything in the store that needed to be thrown out had been. She had everything else she needed for the moment. And besides, it was Saturday. Ideally, she’d be sitting with a bowl of cereal watching cartoons.

  In the absence of cartoons, she settled for the cereal. She didn’t have a jug of milk in the now-empty (and now-unpowered) fridge, but she did have a can of condensed milk in the cupboard, and that, some dried orange slices and Honey Bunches of Oats would do for a balanced breakfast. She also put away a pint of water, two Advil and the lithium she’d forgotten last night. And when she was done eating, she rubbed aloe vera gel into the pinker spots on her skin. Ah, that was better.

  So what to do with her day off?

  After almost two weeks of nearly non-stop and largely necessary activity, she wasn’t sure how she should relax. Not that relaxing was her area of expertise anyway – ADHD, like PMS, social phobias and eating disorders, was a “comorbid condition” (delightfully grim phrase) with bipolar disorder, and she was far more comfortable doing something than not. So was there something relaxing she could occupy herself with, letting herself recharge for whatever dropped on her next?

  “What she usually did” was her first thought, until she realized that would be impractical. Topping that list was movie watching, but the only way she could manage that was to take a video player up to the Zen farm and fire up the generator or hook it up to a car battery. Video games were out; so was anything that would’ve been online. She wasn’t a heavy reader, and the Matchicks’ book collection leaned heavily toward computer programming languages …

  … but there was one book she’d planned to read – LaSheba’s journal. And she’d thought about starting one of her own. And there were always lists she could make – she’d been thinking about one of long-term survival projects. All of which she could do sitting down or lying down.

  “Problem solved,” she sang as she gathered up what she needed: LaSheba’s diary, the ubiquitous yellow legal pad, a blank book from the office, two pens, a bag of dehydrated cream cheese disks, a bag of Doritos and two bottles of water. She piled them all on the coffee table in the living room, opened the blinds for sunshine, sat on the couch, leaned against one arm with her legs stretched out, and took a couple to deep breaths, consciously untensing her muscles.

  One she felt sufficiently chill, she picked up a pen and the pad:

  Possible long-term activities:

  Move that semi off the highway

  Forklift in town?

  Learn how to use heavy equipment?

  Worst-case: big pickup with grille guard for shoving

  Build privy or something similar

  How deep to dig?

  How to build shack (?) over it?

  House to house hunt/catalogue items

  How detailed?

  Check vegetable gardens?

  Draw map?

  Move canned/dry goods to store or home?

  Harvest crops at Holy Green

  Sept/Oct? What crops are growing there?

  Plant crops at Holy Green

  Mar/Apr?

  Where to find seeds?

  Rain barrels – what to use? Where to find?

  Find horse & learn to ride

  Equipment up at ranch to north

  Any horses still hanging around there?

  Explore E. Marin (after semi moved – drive there)

  What to look for besides people?

  Learn how to handle gun

  Pistol? Rifle?

  Search for them during house to house?

  That was a substantial list. The most important items seemed to be the first two – shoving the big rig aside would open up possibilities, and having a workable toilet at home would just save a lot of headache. She put stars by those two. Unless something more urgent came up, she’d begin addressing those over the next week – she could start tomorrow or Monday, depending on how long she decided this vacation would last.

  She set the pad aside and picked up the blank book next. She’d journaled before, but usually it only lasted for a few months. Then she’d miss some days, get back to it for one, miss some more, really buckle down for a week, miss a while, and pretty soon it was two months without an entry and she wondered why she’d bothered in the first place. She rarely looked back at what she’d written.

  But she felt like she should have some record of this crisis, something she could show someone else if she ever found someone else. Or to leave for future generations (if there would be any) or alien archeologists or evolved rodents or whoever came along on Earth. It was an instinct, a reaction, more about emotion than thought. She wanted some legacy, however paltry. Was that so bad?

  “No, it’s not,”
she decided. She opened the book, printed and signed her name on the first page, then flipped to the second and added the date. After a moment’s thought, she wrote:

  Day 20 of the Apocalypse

  Day 1, of course, was the day she got sick. It might be self-centered, but her self was about all she could center on right now. Give her someone else to care for and she might center on them; for now, she was all she had.

  This is a record of my experiences during and after the worldwide pandemic of August of this year. The first pages will be catching up on all my activity in surviving and in acquiring supplies to continue surviving over the previous 19 days. Further entries will cover future activities.

  It seemed so formal – her writing style hearkened back to college term papers. But she wasn’t looking to sell this to a publisher, so who cared? She kept writing, filling page after page with remembrances of being sick, recovering to find a changed world, dealing with the bodies of her fellow residents, finding and preserving food, the power and water shutting off, and generally reworking things to serve the needs of (possibly) the last person left.

  By the time Kelly was done, she found she’d filled a third of the book – though it wasn’t a large book – her hand was cramping and she was hungry. She opened the Doritos, drank some water and flipped back through her scribbling. She hadn’t left out much, just some of the crying and depressive jags. It was as comprehensive and honest as it needed to be, she supposed. She went to the next untouched page, wrote tomorrow’s date and Day 21 at the top, and set it back on the table.

  That left LaSheba’s journal, and she realized she’d been subconsciously putting it off all this time. Part of it was the old taboo about reading someone’s private writings, especially a friend’s – that was a good way to end a friendship. Of course, LaSheba was way past the point of caring. Her soul was in Heaven or wherever souls went if they went anyplace. Her body was in a burnt pile on the beach. She wasn’t going to haunt her about this.

  Another part, though, was that the last few days’ entries would be a chronicle of her, her friends and everyone around her dying with no logical explanation. If that didn’t push some emotional buttons, Kelly would be surprised. She wasn’t sure she wanted her buttons pushed. And there was no guarantee there would be a scrap of useful knowledge to be found. LaSheba wasn’t a scientist or a doctor, and certainly not a survivalist – she was a farmer’s daughter from around Fresno who worked at a grocery store.

  But looking into it was a Thing She Could Do. It might have some helpful information after all. And it was a loose end. By reading it, maybe she could get some closure she didn’t have regarding her coworkers. Maybe she could honor their memory …?

  Maybe it made no sense at all. Maybe it didn’t need to. But she knew it would bother her if she didn’t, and that was what finally got her to pick it up and open it.

  The front page read “VOLUME 14.” So LaSheba had been doing this for some time. She hadn’t bothered to look around the party of five’s place when she found their bodies, or when she bagged and removed them. It had almost been too much for her to do that. Maybe if she felt the need, she’d go back and see if volumes 1 through 13 were sitting around.

  The next began with a date, June 27. “So this will only cover a little over a month.” She felt a little less bad about that – at least she was only prying into a few weeks of her friend’s secrets. Though as she read, she didn’t find a lot of secrets. Minor stuff about work, songs she was listening to, goings-on among the roommates, the occasional mention of a date with someone named Amar who lived in Mill Valley. She didn’t seem too serious about him.

  Kelly only showed up three times in the entries. The first was on July 4: Da Boss closed the store for a few minutes and we all went up on the roof to watch the fireworks on the other side of the hills. Couldn’t see much but it was still fun. LaSheba and Vivi Fifi often called her Da Boss – Vivi Fifi came up with it, saying it could be her hip-hop name. Everyone found that funny, especially LaSheba, since Kelly was almost as white as you could get and Vivi Fifi bordered on translucent.

  July 16’s note was even more heartening: That B Mrs. Cavendish was griping about the cold cuts & calling me everything short of N. Da Boss came over & set her straight, said if she ever talked to one of her people like that again she’d refuse her service 4ever. B tried to go off about the black forest ham and Da Boss said it was the same as always and didn’t excuse her behavior. Mrs. Cavendish said she might call corporate and Da Boss said, fine, use my phone and held it out! BOOM – that shut her up! KELLY IS AWESOME!

  She remembered that one. Maura Cavendish was over seventy-five and never seemed happy unless she was complaining. She remembered one time when the old bat was shopping with her husband Steve and whined at Bilbo at the register about how her grandkids never called and that’s what’s wrong with your generation, boy, no gratitude. Steve cut her off with “This generation won’t put up with your BS, dear, and they’re right not to.” Bilbo held it together until they left, then almost fell over laughing.

  And Mrs. Cavendish never did call corporate. As it was, Kelly did, telling Wanda the secretary about the incident. Wanda called back the next day, saying she’d told Mr. Ashcroft and he said not to ban her just yet but if it happened again he’d reconsider. Julian Ashcroft had worked in his dad’s stores when he was learning the business and knew full well the customer was not always right.

  The third mention …

  Had to work a long shift today bc Da Boss called in sick. Surprised us all, since she’d show up with a bullet would if she was on the sked. Hope she don’t have what Leslie got – that girl’s sick as a dog. Came home and Viv isn’t feeling so hot either. Better take my vitamins and hope for the best.

  That was Monday of the week everything went to Hell. Part of her didn’t want to turn the page and read the rest. But she did read the next page, and the next, and the next.

  There was no insight on how it happened or why, only that it did. Michanne fell ill the next morning, as did Sarah. On Wednesday LaSheba was starting to drag some herself, but she still went to work, figuring she’d be off Thursday and could rest then if she needed to. She listed symptoms in her diary, the same as in the news reports.

  Thursday morning, Vivi Fifi found Leslie and Sarah dead in their beds. Michanne could barely stir from hers; she died sometime in the afternoon. And LaSheba went into shock. Her sentences became clipped, just detailing sensations and impressions: Scared. Bilbo at store doesn’t sound right. Afraid to go outside. News is scary. Confused, what’s happening?

  Friday night, Vivi, who according to LaSheba had been silent all day, went to bed. Saturday morning, LaSheba found her there. On a nearby table was a bottle of Vicodin Michanne had been given six months before when she had her wisdom teeth removed – she’d only used two or three because she said she preferred the pain to feeling loopy. Now it was empty.

  Saturday afternoon, the last note: Last one alive. I wish I understood why this is happening …

  “You and me both, girl,” Kelly sobbed, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “You and me both.” Her friend’s questions were hers as well – did God or Nature want to be rid of humanity? Did someone release something into the air, either as an attack or by accident? And she had an extra one to add: why was everyone else gone, and she was still here?!

  She didn’t have answers to those. But she could weep for her friends, could mourn. For now, that would have to be enough.

  14

  TRUCK

  Kelly spent the rest of Saturday and all of Sunday resting, doing the bare minimum needed to keep going. She scribbled a note or two on the projects list. She added an entry to her journal, a short one. She read part of a paperback techno-thriller she found on a bookshelf in the office. She slept late. She ate more than usual.

  By Monday morning – day 22 – she was bored out of her nut. Time to be up and doing again.

  Therein lay a difficulty. She’d been operating based on ur
gency from day 8 through day 19 – hurrying to get rid of the bodies, hurrying to preserve perishables, hurrying to get her meds, hurrying, hurrying, hurrying. Everything had to be done now if not sooner, or it would be too late to do it at all. Things had to be taken care of, or she wouldn’t have what she needed.

  But the urgent was more or less done now. She had the resources of an entire town to draw from. She had no one else depending on her. She wasn’t being pressed by necessity to get X or Y finished before the sun went down.

  Hypothesis: she had to think of a new way to deal with each day.

  She’d always worked best when she didn’t have to think about that so much. She had a schedule for work, and plans for filling the hours around it – not set in stone, necessarily, but it gave her a fallback position, a comfort zone. She could adjust as needed, but if she didn’t need to she could just move to the next item.

  Now the only items she had were on the long-term list she’d made Saturday. Some of those couldn’t be started now, and none of them needed to be. But … but she could use one to fill time while she thought about making a daily plan. That would at least take care of day 22. Day 23 … well, each day had enough troubles of its own, didn’t it?

  Hmmm … well, moving that McDonald’s truck off the highway was at the top of the list. Specifically, find something with which she could move it – a bulldozer, a backhoe, something big with a lot of horsepower. She’d have to look around town for that. But while she was doing that, she could draw a map of town to keep track when she started doing the house-to-house scavenger hunt. Not to mention get a little exercise and a little sun (but not too much, given her Irish skin).