Famine: The Quiet Apocalypse

by T M Edwards

  The air bit with relentless teeth through every layer I was wearing. I pulled my heavy coat out of the truck and zipped it up until I felt rather like a human penguin--but at least my arms were somewhere in the realm of warm. “Apparently not.”

  “How can you be so cavalier about this? Even one night out here could kill us.”

  “I don’t see how we have a choice,” I snapped back, clipping the chest buckle on my backpack into place. “What do you want me to say? You want me to tell you it’s going to be okay, you can fix it? Because I don’t have the energy to lie right now. I’d rather walk than keep whining about something we can’t change.”

  Sam glared at me before putting on the coat I held out to him and shouldering his own pack. “All that for nothing.”

  “Oh, just come on, Sam.” The unwonted irritation surprised me, but by this point I was committed. “Let’s just go.” Without waiting for him, knowing he’d catch up, I grabbed my cane and set out up the highway. Honey Badger followed, oblivious to our snippyness. She seemed to love the crunching sound the snow made, and often chose to leap up and crash down through the thin layer of ice rather than walk along like a normal animal.

  As I knew he would, Sam caught up to me within a couple minutes. I ignored his presence, focusing on putting one foot (or cane) in front of the other. My ankle always ached these days. It was like the cold had gotten into the bone and settled there, and it never quite stopped hurting. Maybe that was why I felt so angry at the world. It certainly wasn’t Sam’s fault I was irritable. Normally, I’d have recognized his frustration as stress and not taken it personally, but today my fuse felt about half its normal length.

  We walked through the deepening night until Sam grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stop. “We should rest. We don’t need one of us slipping on ice and adding a broken neck to our list of injuries.”

  I nodded, though I wanted nothing more than to keep walking. Forcing back my desperation to keep moving forward, I followed him down into the ditch beside the road and helped him set up the tent.

  After we’d crawled inside and I sat shivering while I waited for Sam to wrestle the zipper closed, he crawled over to me and put his arms around me.

  “Sam, why didn’t we bring firewood?”

  “Because it was heavy and bulky.”

  “Oh yeah, that’s right.” Honey Badger plopped down next to me, but even her warmth was hardly enough to help drive away the pervasive chill.

  “You know…” Sam hesitated. “You’re not going to like this, but we’d be able to keep each other warmer if there was less clothing separating us.”

  “I’m not sure I care anymore.”

  Sam chuckled at my tone, then move away. “Okay. Hang on a minute.” He unstrapped our sleeping bags from the bottom of our backpacks and zipped them together to make one large enclosure. “We can give the coats to Honey Badger.”

  I was shivering too hard to argue with anything he said. I hurriedly unzipped my coat and tossed it over the dog, then crawled into the sleeping bag. Sam followed my example, and soon we were both inside with his arms around me and my head against his chest.

  “Better?”

  “A little.” My voice was muffled by his hoodie. “Oh, great.”

  “What?”

  A hint of a whine entered my voice. “I’m hungry. But I don’t wanna get out.”

  Laughing, Sam reached behind me and dragged a backpack over. “What do you want?”

  “Hot, gooey lasagna with garlic bread and tons of parmesan cheese.”

  Sam raised an eyebrow at me and looked down his nose at me in the narrow space between us. “Not helpful.”

  I sighed. “I don’t know. Whatever.”

  He pulled something out of the pack and handed it to me. “One serving of ‘whatever’.”

  “Thanks.” I took the granola bar and opened it. “Ugh, I think this one’s gone bad.”

  Sam grabbed my wrist and pulled it toward his face. “Smells fine to me. Anyway, how does a granola bar go bad?”

  “I have no idea.” Grimacing at the less-than-appealing smell, I took a bite, then forced down one chunk after another until it was gone.

  “Hey.” I looked up at Sam’s quiet voice, and found myself gazing through the darkness straight into his eyes. “Did I ever thank you for everything you’ve done the past couple weeks?”

  “I just did what any decent person would.”

  Sam reached up and pushed a clump of curls behind my ear. “There’s plenty of decent people who wouldn’t have stuck around. Regardless, I’m grateful. I know it wasn’t easy for you, stitching me up and seeing me that ill. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.”

  I smiled ruefully at him. “You didn’t see me puking my guts out right afterward.”

  “Even people in training to be medics and doctors have those moments. You still did it, and that’s what matters.”

  Sighing, I reached up and touched his cheek. “Fine. You’re welcome.”

  In the darkness, his mouth curved in a smile, then he moved his head forward and kissed me. His lips moved against mine as he spoke. “You know, I have a few ideas about ways we could keep warm…”

  For a second I returned his kiss, then pulled back. “We shouldn’t. It’s not safe.” I’d never yet told him the real reason why I was so hesitant (beside the whole “let’s not get pregnant in the apocalypse” thing).

  “Neither is freezing to death.”

  Sighing, I wriggled a little further into the sleeping bag and laid my head against his chest. “I just wanted it to be special, is all.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I just didn’t expect my first time to be in a hotel room in the middle of the apocalypse.”

  Sam stiffened. “Your first…” he moved backward until he could look at me. “Deidre, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It’s not exactly something to brag about, is it? Being mid-twenties and never been kissed? Or, you know…”

  He sighed. “I wish you’d told me. I wish…” shaking his head, he cradled the side of my face with his hand. “I wish I’d known. Maybe it wouldn’t have stopped us, but still.”

  “It’s fine, Sam.” An inexplicable tear escaped to run down my cheek. “It’s done, and I’m not upset. I just...well, we only get so many firsts, and I don’t want to waste them all on cold, smelly nights in the apocalypse.”

  “I understand.” He hugged me to his chest, but didn’t try to kiss me again. “Still...I’m sorry.”

  ***

  “Are you sure these don’t smell bad to you?”

  Sam slowed his pace enough to let me catch up and hand him the granola bar. He gave it a long sniff, then handed it back. “Yes, I’m sure.” He watched me with a quizzical expression as I took a bite, grimacing over the odd metallic taste. “Considering how many of these we’ve eaten, you’d think we’d be sick by now if they were bad.”

  I couldn’t argue with his logic, so once again I forced down the granola bar to quiet the grumbling in my stomach and the vague sense of hunger nausea. Then I hurried to keep up with him as he strode across the blinding white snow. Honey Badger pranced around me, sniffing my hands in search of any leftover crumbs. Apparently I was the only one who thought our food smelled like it had sat in a storage room about six months too long.

  “Look”. Sam pointed ahead, to where a dark caution light stood, and the top of a telltale red-and-white roof signaled a gas station. “Maybe you can find something in there that doesn’t taste weird.”

  Somewhat energized by the thought, I hurried forward until we reached the intersection and the snow-covered parking lot. While Sam outside to see if either of the vehicles in the parking lot were functional, I stepped into the store with Honey Badger at my heels and hunted through the shelves for anything that looked appetizing.

  “Seriously?” Sam raised his eyebrows at me as I returned to the parking lot holding a plastic bag full of chocolate and salt-and-vinegar chips.

>   “Don’t judge.” I popped a chip in my mouth as I watched him. “So?”

  “First one was dead. Not even a click. This one seems to be working, but it’s barely got any gas.”

  “How much farther do we have to go?”

  Sam shrugged. “Maybe thirty miles to get to Minot. Of course, that doesn’t account for however many we have to spend searching for the egg. Unless the population is randomly much denser there than anywhere else, and someone knows where it is, we could spend quite a while searching.”

  I tried not to let his facts dampen my spirits. We were almost there. It felt like a victory, even if it was only the first part of the journey. “Let’s just get there.”

  He nodded, and the three of us piled into the smaller pickup. Honey Badger had to sit between us, and Sam’s backpack had to go in the truck bed, but soon we were all inside. I felt almost euphoric when Sam turned the truck on and warm air issued from the vents. He was right--the needle on the gas gauge was perilously close to empty.

  “Well, here goes nothing.” Sam put the truck into park, and eased it out onto the highway. He kept our pace slow, which I guessed was as much to preserve the gas mileage as because of the snow.

  “Twenty seven miles.” Sam turned the truck off, which seemed redundant as it had already died. Minot was so close I could taste it. The buildings ahead grew closer together, promising if we just kept moving we’d soon reach the city.

  Once we’d all exited the truck and we stood together on the asphalt, I laughed. Sam looked at me in confusion. “It’s the apocalypse, Sam. It’s the damn apocalypse, and we just made it sixteen hundred miles, in the winter, and we didn’t die.”

  19: Deja Vu

  “It just doesn’t seem right.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  I stared at the open doors in front of us, beckoning us into the darkened grocery store. “All those people back there, living in an ever-worsening famine, and here we are, steps away from an entire supercenter worth of food and supplies.”

  Sam clasped my shoulder before stepping forward. “Come on. It won’t help them for us to starve ourselves in sympathy. We’ll need food if we’re going to start exploring the city tomorrow.”

  He walked through the doors as I hesitated. It wasn’t just the thought of having so much while our friends had so little. Though once I’d eaten my way through a significant portion of the chocolate bars and chips, I’d definitely had some moments of intense guilt when I thought about those we’d left behind. Here you are gorging on candy and snacks while they try to make their rice and oatmeal last as long as they can.

  No, there was more to it than that. I didn’t want Sam to know how much my ankle hurt, because he’d slow down to accompany me. I didn’t want him to know about the nausea I’d been fighting for the past two days. All I wanted was to find some corner to crawl into and sleep it off. If I never had to look at another granola bar in my life, I’d be thrilled.

  Of course, these thoughts only intensified my guilt as I remembered how limited the options were for those we’d left behind.

  “You coming?” Sam appeared in the doorway.

  I managed a small smile and a nod, and limped forward. Honey Badger dashed past me to follow Sam, while I continued with my slower pace.

  As I stepped through the doors, Sam was standing halfway between them and the indoor cart corral. The sickly-sweet smell of decay hit me like a wall, and it was all I could do to keep from gagging. Sam furrowed his eyebrows at me as I paused, trying to catch my breath and figure out how to breathe through just my mouth.

  “Hey, you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” I grabbed a cart that was sitting in the middle of the entryway and stuck my cane in the basket. “You don’t smell that?”

  “What?” He stuck his nose in the air and sniffed. “Smells like old food, I guess.” A strange expression passed over his face. “Oh…”

  Now it was my turn. “What? What’s that face?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it. You wanna split up?”

  “That’s fine.” I headed toward the food section, while he grabbed his own cart and walked off in the opposite direction.

  ***

  As I waited with my cart near the front of the store and stared at the mounds of supplies within it, the guilt (or was it the nausea) assaulted me stronger with every passing minute. I thought of Zena, her deep brown eyes staring into mine as she begged us to take her with us. She could be here right now, enjoying all this with us instead of starving in the bunker. I couldn’t stop the self-recrimination, even though I knew we probably never would have made it past the cannibals if she’d come.

  I loved her like the little sister I’d never had, but she was unpredictable in stressful situations. I never knew if she’d freeze or freak out. The saddest part was that she knew her own tendencies and she hated herself for them. She’d always tried so hard to understand when we gently told her she couldn’t help with a specific task or mission. She wanted to badly to help. She cared deeper than all of us, I often thought, and railed against the limitations of her own brain.

  When Sam found me standing there, I was sobbing over my cart while Honey Badger whined and pressed herself against my legs. I heard him abandon his cart and he rushed over to me, gathering me into his arms. “Hey. What’s wrong? What happened?”

  “We, we can’t!”

  He held me at arms’ length as his eyes searched my face. “We can’t what?”

  “We can’t eat this!”

  “Okay, honey, but why?”

  I knew I was being ridiculous. I knew I wasn’t making sense. Despite this, the tears flowed as the unrelenting sobs tore through me, and I felt helpless to stop it all. My chest ached as if my heart was literally cracking, and the thoughts whirling through my brain hardly made any more sense than the words coming out of my mouth. “They’re starving...we can’t eat this. We can’t. It’s not right.”

  “Oh, Deidre.” Sam pulled me closer to him again, and I buried my face in the gap between the edges of his unzipped coat. “We’re doing this to help them. Everything we’ve done is to help them. You gotta stop blaming yourself.”

  “But Zena, and Kiera, and Laura, and Alan…” I trailed off, my mind blanking on all the other names. “They’re starving!”

  “Right. Which is why we have to stop the spores, so they can go outside and get their own food. Deidre…” he sighed, and rested his chin on top of my head.

  The irony of how we constantly swapped places didn’t escape me. One moment, it was Sam who was impatient and grumpy with guilt and frustration. The next, it was him reassuring me while my nose and eyes ran into the fabric of his sweatshirt.

  “It’s never going to be over! Even if we turn off the egg, there’s still no people. How are we supposed to rebuild the world if there’s no people?”

  “I wouldn’t say no people.” The wry, unfamiliar voice reached me at the same instant Sam stiffened. I pushed away from him and glanced up to see where he was looking. I spun around just as Honey Badger started barking--and gasped.

  A man stood just outside the store’s open doors--and he wasn’t alone. A half-dozen other people were clustered behind him. In a quick glance I recognized three men, two women and two children, who appeared to be twins and around ten years old. The group stared at us as Honey Badger barked like a maniac.

  “Hey!” Sam nudged the dog with his foot. “Cut it out.” Honey Badger quieted, but only to slink behind our legs and peer out around us, growling at the new people.

  The man who’d spoken took a step forward. He was tall and lean, with the straight black hair and dark copper-toned skin of a Native American. Overall, they were quite the motley group. Of the three other men, one looked Asian and one had skin darker than Zena’s, with the third one bearing a lot of resemblance to Alan from the bunker. The two women were pale with blond hair an identical shade, and faces that marked them as close relatives, perhaps sisters. The two children could have
been twins, with their brown skin and the tight curls of their hair.

  “We mean you no harm.” He held out his hands to show his empty palms. “We saw your vehicle and thought you must have come from out of town.”

  I was having flashbacks to the time the cannibals had walked up to our car, and I couldn’t stop myself from shrinking away when the man stepped forward.

  “You are afraid.” His voice was gentle, and a little sad. “You do not have to fear us.”

  “Apologies.” Sam stepped away, and left me clutching the cart as he stepped forward to shake the man’s hand. “The other people we’ve met along the way, were…” he glanced back at me. “Well, they were less than friendly.” His eyes were on my arm, where my sleeve hid bruises so deep they were still healing, nearly two weeks later. “My name is Sam, this is Deidre.”