Alone

by Jennifer Reynolds

  “Are you guys coming back soon? Caleb is crying for Eve,” she told him, sounding a bit uneasy.

  “Yes, we’ll be coming back soon. With company.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t worry. See you in a bit.” He put the CB on the hook and went back to Eve’s side.

  “How many are alive here?” asked Loui, looking toward the truck to see if anyone was hiding in or around it.

  “Four adults and two children,” replied William.

  “You three are more than welcome to come back with us,” Eve said a little nervously, not at all comfortable with how much she wanted them, Wes in particular to come.

  “That would be wonderful.” The others agreed with Wes.

  William sat in the back of the truck with Antonio, Loui, and their things. Wes sat in the cab with Eve. They talked very little on the way back to Eve’s house. She really hoped her nerves were due more to fear than attraction. Never had she had such an immediate reaction to someone. She told herself it was because she had been without a man for so long.

  To take her mind off him, she forced herself to worry about other things. Eve worried about showing them where she lived. They didn’t seem threatening, not as Brent had looked. Eve had clearly seen the insanity in that man’s eyes. These new people looked tired and sad but not insane. Still she kept her gun in her lap facing the man riding in the passenger seat.

  “I cannot believe it was by random chance that you flew over my home,” she finally said, breaking the silence.

  “You’re surprised. Imagine how we felt seeing the smoke. We have been in and out of the air for months now and you guys are the first people we have seen anywhere.”

  “That is all you have been doing is flying?”

  “Yes, we started out in Georgia. At first, I was the only one who knew how to fly, but over time, I’ve taught them all to fly. We picked an airport outside of New York City to fly into first. We spent a few days wandering around, but we found nothing but a rotting city. We have been city jumping ever since. This city looks pretty clean.” He watched in amazement as the empty town passed around him.

  “We’ve been working on cleaning it up. I live in the next town over, Richardson, and it and the surrounding cities are pretty much body free.”

  “We’ve been to very few cities that look like this, like the disease never happened.”

  “I don’t know about that. I think that the emptiness reminds people, us, survivors, that it happened.”

  He nodded contemplatively and looked out the window. Neither said anything else for the rest of the ride.

  When they pulled up to the house, Lydia was rocking Caleb in her lap, Delia was sleeping in her bassinet, and Vera was pacing back and forth across the porch. Caleb had stopped crying but he looked scared. At the sound of the truck doors shutting, Vera jumped and looked in its direction.

  “If you had stopped pacing you would have heard me say they were pulling up,” Lydia stated, but Vera didn’t respond, she just stood like a statue staring at the new arrivals.

  The second Eve’s feet hit the walkway leading to the front porch, Caleb nearly fell out of Lydia’s arms and went running.

  “E,” he shouted. She bent down and picked him up. He hugged her so tight she had to peel his arms off her. A few tears trailed down his cheek.

  “What is wrong, little man?” Eve asked, leading the newcomers to the porch. Vera backed slowly toward the door. Lydia picked Delia up, cradling her to her chest protectively. Eve could read the distrust on their faces.

  “Are they bad men like the one that came before Aunt V,” Caleb asked.

  Eve looked down at him shocked that he would remember that. She threw a glance at Vera as if to ask her if she had also heard what he had said. The look that had run across the other woman’s face told Eve she had. He had barely been able to talk the summer that Brent had come. He had never commented or even acknowledged the man’s existence, not even when Will arrived. He had said nothing until now.

  Everyone else looked at Caleb and Eve with confusion, everyone except for Vera. She knew the story and found the appearance of these newcomers to be of more importance, so she refused to answer the questions written on their faces.

  “I don’t know, baby. I don’t think so,” was all Eve could say to him.

  Introductions were made with very little conversation. She couldn’t help but look to Wes to see how he reacted to Caleb’s presence. He looked at them with curiosity and at Caleb in awe. Not much was said, as it was nearing supper time and everyone was hungry. Eve gave the men rooms to sleep in, to William’s disapproval. But Eve reassured him that they were protected.

  They had dinner in silence. Once the kids were in bed, the adults gathered in the family room to have the long awaited conversations about who each other was, where they were from, and what they were doing now.

  All three men were from the same general area of Georgia. Antonio had been an orphan since birth and had no siblings. He spent most of his life living in random foster homes until he was eighteen when he joined the National Guard and a few years later enrolled in college, all the while working at the local paper plant.

  “I lost my girlfriend that January,” he told them. “Her family and I thought, as did most people, that she had the flu. In a way, it was, but somehow it was worse. After that, my friends started dying from everything. Stupid things.”

  Loui’s mom had died of cancer when he was twelve, his father had never remarried, and he only had one older brother who died when the earthquake hit California. He was also a student at the same college Loui was attending. They had had a few classes together but weren’t friends then.

  “Pop died of a severe case of emphysema in late February. After that, I was alone. I had no other family. Mom and dad had both been only children. Therefore, I had no aunts, uncles or cousins to mourn with me. All of my friends were college friends and they had all gone back home for the Christmas holiday.”

  Wes was also a student, but he hadn’t gone home for the holidays. He wouldn’t say why. He got a phone call from his aunt in February who told him that his parents had died during a holdup at a local bank. People were panicking and doing a lot of horrible things at that time and his parents, who had shown no signs of the sickness, had just been victims.

  Like Loui, most of his friends had gone home, so he was alone through it all. He met the other two through the clean-up crew in their area. They spent a lot of time together cleaning up a big section of central Georgia. Wes explained that they had worked every day they could until the beginning of that year.

  “We started driving throughout the state looking for other survivors after that. In March, we decided to leave Georgia and look for others elsewhere. I told Eve in the car on the way here that the first place we stopped was New York City. The moment we got off the plane, the smell of rotting flesh bombarded us.

  “We spent a good part of a week burning bodies and searching for survivors. When we decided to leave, you couldn’t even tell we had been through; the city was such a mess. We jumped from city to city after that. I taught the others how to fly. Each town we came to we would work a few days, search for people a few days, then leave when we were sure we wouldn’t find anyone.”

  “Well, now that you have found people, what do you plan on doing?” Will asked.

  “We don’t know yet. We haven’t really discussed it,” Loui replied, looking at the other men and noticing that Wes was looking at Eve.

  “You seem like nice boys and if you stay that way, you are more than welcome to stay here,” William told them in a very father-knows-best-and-will-crush-you-if-you-act-up voice.

  “William?” Lydia scolded at him.

  “What?” He pretended to look confused and innocent.

  “That’s not something for you to decide.”

  “I wasn’t inviting them to stay in Eve’s house.”

  “I know, but this is Eve’s town. She is the only one who can make the decision on
whether or not they can stay here.”

  “What… No…What…Wait… Don’t put that off on me. We all live here. We should all get to make that decision,” Eve announced, shocking them all. Her gaze went immediately to Wes then to Vera. She wanted to know what Wes thought about this town being hers and she wanted to know what Vera thought about them staying.

  “But this was your home first. You were born and raised here. You have turned it into what it is now. We have only just arrived. You should be the one to decide,” Lydia argued.

  “We’ll talk about it later, but Will is right as long as you don’t cause problems—I won’t accept any drunks or druggies—and if we decide that you can stay you have to help out with everything we do around here. That is if you decide to stay,” she was rambling and scared. She didn’t know how she felt about the entire situation.

  “Thank you for the invite. I know we would like to stay for a least a few days. After that we will have to discuss it,” Wes said, looking to each of his friends in turn.

  After a short, private discussion the next day, Eve and the others decided that the men could stay for a temporary term, if they wanted, and if it all worked out, then their stay could become permanent. The three men moved into the house on the opposite side of Eve from where Will and Lydia were staying.

  They stayed for about a week before they left to investigate another city. They decided that the best way for them to help was to continue to look for more survivors. The only difference was that now every other week they would come back, with whatever news and supplies they had, help with what whatever was going on, and prepare for the next week’s flight.

  “We don’t have to hurry to a different town now that we have found people, but if we all made it through the disease then others should have also,” Wes explained the night before they left again, when Vera asked why they had decided to continue doing what they had been doing.

  II – Wendy

  Thanksgiving landed in the middle of a week that the guys were supposed to be gone. This caused a problem with some of the group for a number of reasons. One was because this year’s Thanksgiving was going to be the largest any of them had had in years, and nearly every one of them was looking forward to it, but the trio didn’t want to break their routine for fear that they may not pick it back up again. There was an unspoken truth amongst them; if they got too comfortable here then the trips would stop, they wouldn’t want to go out anymore, and that might bring an end to survivors. They had quickly discovered that the trips were key to their survival and were determined not to let anything get in their way.

  The second reason was a source of great amusement for Eve.

  “Please tell me you’re not going this week,” Vera demanded with a hint of anger in her voice.

  “That was the plan,” Loui replied as the two of them made their way into the kitchen where Eve was studying a few cookbooks, looking for recipes to try out for the Thanksgiving dinner.

  “But you’ll miss Thanksgiving Dinner.” Vera was nearly yelling at Loui now. Eve was doing her best to ignore them.

  “So.”

  Wrong answer, Eve thought to herself, stifling a snicker. Vera and Loui’s banter was a great source of amusement for everyone, which Eve particularly loved because it kept people from watching her too closely as she interacted with Wes.

  “So. So. You don’t care if you miss Thanksgiving Dinner? Sitting down to a family meal on one of the more special holidays isn’t important to you?” Vera was beyond angry now.

  “I didn’t say that.” The frustration was evident in his voice.

  “Then how should I interpret your ‘so’?” They were right in front of the counter Eve was leaning over, and didn’t seem to know she was in the room.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know why I said it.”

  “Then you do care?” Her anger cooling.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Then why are you going. Why can’t you guys skip this one week?”

  Eve couldn’t resist. She cast her gaze in their direction and watched the play of emotions that passed between them.

  “Fine, I’ll talk to the guys and see what I can work out,” Loui conceded in a soothing voice but still with a touch of anger in it. Eve noticed that the two didn’t touch, but she could see the pull between them, the need to feel one another.

  The look in Loui’s eyes said he was trying to stay calm and not fight with Vera. For some reason nearly every time they had a conversation, it turned into a fight over something. They had started arguing almost the day the guys flew into town and hadn’t stopped.

  “But if they are planning on going, I’m going with them,” he said pointedly.

  “Fine, but I’m not going to save you any food,” Vera retorted, turning away from him.

  “Fine,” Loui snapped and left the room.

  “That was the lamest come back ever,” Eve told Vera, shaking her head with amusement.

  “I know, but I couldn’t think of anything else harsh to say.” She leaned onto the counter, examining the book Eve had been looking through.

  “Why are you fighting about this anyway?”

  “I don’t know. We were just talking about the last time we had Thanksgiving Dinner with our families, and then he said they were going to fly out this week, and I got upset, and we started fighting.”

  “The two of you fight about the strangest things,” Eve commented, shaking her head a little in confusion.

  “We fight about the dumbest things. But I can’t stop myself. It’s like we can’t hold the smallest, simplest conversation without pissing the other off.”

  “Why don’t you go ahead and have sex and get it over with?”

  “What?” Vera jerked up straight, indignant at the suggestion.

  “You have to know that this thing between the two of you is sexual tension. Everyone in town except Caleb and Delia can feel it.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Is it that obvious?” she whispered, leaning toward Eve.

  “If it were any more obvious, the two of you would be wearing billboard signs.”

  “Kind of like you and Wes?”

  “Huh? What? No.” Eve didn’t like where this conversation was going, so she quickly changed the subject. “What all do you think we should make for dinner?”

  “Oh, no you don’t. You brought this up. You picked this road to go down. If we are going to talk about my love life, then we are going to talk about yours.”

  “So you admit you have a love life?” Eve said, again shifting the conversation. She really didn’t want to have this conversation.

  “Who has a love life?” Loui asked, pointedly at Vera, as he came back into the room followed by Wes and Antonio.

  “No one,” Vera quickly blurted.

  “What is going on?” Wes asked, directing his question at Eve, genuinely confused, having missed everything. Eve’s heart pounded in her chest.

  She tried her best not to stare at him as she replied. “Nothing. Vera and I were just discussing Thursday’s meal.” She chanced a quick look at him before pointing at the book. Could I really go down that road again? she thought, but Loui cut off her train of thought before she could answerer herself.

  “Speaking of which, we have made a decision on that.” Loui looked at Vera and smiled. The guys would make a run, but to pacify Vera they chose to leave that Sunday and return home Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. Although Vera agreed to that, Eve could tell that spending that much time away from Loui was going to wear on the other woman’s nerves. Therefore, Eve suggested that Vera go with them.

  Her suggestion caused a bit of jealousy to surge through her. But who was she jealous over. Eve had gotten so used to Vera being with her. Even after the Sizemores came, Vera was hers. Vera lived with her. They spent nearly all of their time together. They had become very close and now there was Loui. Now Vera thought of reasons to go see him, to be near him. He was gradually taking
Vera from her. She wanted to be happy for her best friend but a part of her wished he had never come.

  Then there was Wes. Wes, whom she felt pulled toward. Wes, whom she dreamed about, thought about too much. Whom she couldn’t breathe around, couldn’t think around. Her feelings for him were pulling her away from her friend as well.

  Years later, Eve would find out that Vera had felt these same feelings toward Wes, and that had been one of the reasons she had allowed herself to explore her feelings for Loui. What she hadn’t realized was that Eve hadn’t seriously considered any romantic feelings for Wes until much later. She just knew that aside from Vera, Wes was the only other person in the Village she could handle being around almost all of the time. They had the same sense of humor, the same thought processes, and the same ideas for the progress of the village.

  Then the jealousy turned into another direction. Why should Vera get to be with Loui when she couldn’t be with…but did she want to be with him? It wasn’t fair that Vera got be with Loui while she sat at home all alone without… She stopped those thoughts quickly. It wasn’t good going down that path. Yes, she eventually knew that she might end up with him if Vera and Loui became a couple, but it would be only out of necessity or loneliness. He didn’t appear to want her, and would only come to her if there was no one else.

  And if he didn’t want her, there was always Antonio, the last gay man on earth. Poor Antonio wasn’t one of those interior designer type gay men; he was a man’s man gay man. But he would be a fine person to procreate with. Something they all knew they were going to have to do if they wanted the human race to survive. He would be willing to participate, and be an emotional rock, but he wouldn’t fully be the person she would need, the person she could love.

  But was Wes? He was good looking, kind, a bit of a smart ass, but decent. She had felt something for him the first time she saw him, and she thought she had seen something in his eyes as well, but that was storybook stuff. Could a person really know, feel, and see such things so early in a relationship? She hadn’t believed it until Kyle.