The Event Series (Book 1): Life After the Meteor

by Thomas Larson

  Lance and I took a walk out there and found a little floral wreath on the door of the shed. When we told everyone about it in the morning it has created quite a stir in the camp. Interesting the one who seemed most disturbed by it was John. As a result of the visit, we have re-instituted a wingman policy for anyone leaving the camp, and even recommended that in camp one did not wander around much alone after dark.

  Michelle and Anne are going to head up to Hinsdale today to look for some books and information on holistic medicine in the libraries and bookstores. I am not too happy with that but it does need to be done. Mark and Steven are going to also go along to play security detail. The risks are minimal, it does ease the mind a little.

  Margo and Cody are going to take a little jaunt in the woods in the area of the shed trail to see if they can find the “ghost”. From the tapes it definitely appears that the person who put the wreath on the shed was not from the camp. After talking to Tanya it was clear that all of the old biker gang was accounted for. This is getting weird, and a little scary.

  A storm blew in this afternoon and as a result it was ‘come back home early’ for all the out crews. Anne and Michelle did find some good stuff but had not reached the library and a couple of books stores. They are going back tomorrow.

  Margo and Cody found some things that are of interest including a few tracks, but those were washed away in the down pour. Could there finally be a break in the murder case. Overall it was not a bad day.

  August 26th

  The book crew headed back out this morning, this time Mark and Billy went with Anne and Michelle. I spent the morning looking around the area of the shed path that we had seen the…

  Sept 9th

  It has been a while; I am starting to see the sunlight again. It has been hard. I never realized how much our lives had actually been intertwined for these last thirty years. But now she is gone and I have a lot of good memories and a lot of guilt. I should have gone with them that day. I could have, maybe made a difference, and if not, I would still be with her. I have to stop now.

  Sept 10th

  I am sorry, I am having difficulty with this, but it is baby steps forward. Anne is gone. On the second day that they went into Hinsdale to look for books they got separated and Billy and Anne were cornered and overrun by Zoms. We lost them both. Mark and Michelle tried, I know they tried, but there were too many. We all knew in the back of our minds that days like that could happen but we push it down and hope that it isn’t your day.

  We have been lucky, but why did it have to be her. When it happened, I kind of went black. But I knew I could not leave her out there, in that condition. They tried to stop me, but I had to go, to make sure that she was at rest, and if possible bring her home to be free. Margo and Matt forced me to take them with me.

  The rescue itself was pretty cut and dry, I, we, brought them both back. It was kind of ironic that the Zoms that had pinned them down were military, we had not seen soldiers, even dead ones in a long time.

  This writing helps; I spent a lot of days alone, thinking, grieving, crying. I’m broken. But I have a job to do; I have to make certain that Margo and the rest of the group survive. I have to regain my strength and move forward.

  I was not the only one devastated by the events. Cyril and Arcelia lost their daughter. It wore heavy on both of them, Margo also suffers, it was her mom. As the days go by, I see the light going out of Cyril’s eyes. He is lost, Arcelia seems to be doing better with time, but it is hard on her. Cody has helped Margo a lot, just being there. We will get through this, just take those baby steps. It is getting lighter.

  Sept 11th

  About a week after we brought Anne back Margo and I sat down at a little campfire and talked. We talked about her (Anne) and how we met. It is funny I don’t think that we ever really told her before. How I had put an ad in the newspaper personals and she answered. Then we set up a date and she blew me off. But we tried it again and for as different as we were in almost everything we seemed to have some connections and that connection held for thirty years. We had our good times and bad times, and times away, but it would always snap back and we would be together again. We also talked Brandon, and the events that took place with him over the years. It was a long night and a tear-filled one, but it helped so much.

  Today is the 14th year since the World Trade Center attack. Who knew that we would be where we are right now. Back then we almost and briefly thought it was the beginning of the end of the world. Little did we know.

  For the most part the crops are all in and Nick and Grace are canning and storing the food for the winter. We are building up the firewood supplies and bringing that in. There has been a serious effort to winterize …… I’m sorry, I am just filling space with old news...

  I have started to clear out the cabin. It means that I have to remove or just move a lot of the items in the cabin. That is hard to do because there are some many things that belonged to Anne. Some of those items are treasures that I did not know she had taken with her. She haunts me, and yet she is a warm spirit.

  The Canada Geese have been arriving over the last few days. I think that it is there time of migration. God those things are noisy, and there is goose shit all along the edge of the water. But we have had the chance to have some fresh meat. I cannot speak for everyone but rabbit and squirrel are getting a little old. It is a nice change.

  It was Matt who came up with the idea of an icehouse for the camp. It is something that will not be all that important this winter except for the harvesting of the ice. But come spring and summer, it could have a huge impact of preparing for next winter.

  Sept 12th

  We found John this morning, he was dead. Mark had run out to that little shed where Alyssa had been killed to get a couple of tools and found him. He was in the same position as she had been found. His throat had also been slashed. Everything, or almost everything, was identical to how we found her. But there was a note pinned to his chest. It simply said “That is payback, bitch, Peace.”

  Lance ran the videos and we did see John heading toward the shed at about midnight. It seemed he was nervous because he kept looking around. He also had his gun with him. It seemed he had heard something, or he was going there to meet someone. But there was no one else seen wandering the camp. It was odd.

  Maybe I had been correct and he had killed Alyssa but I had never been able to prove it. But it was good, I was back in “cop” mode, it was the kick in the ass I needed to start taking big boy steps again. I knew that there would be times when the sorrow would creep back in, but right now, I was focused.

  Lance watched the videos for the entire camp, it was a long and tedious process and he almost came up empty.

  Lance came and got me and as we walked back to the surveillance room he said, “I forgot about the camera we repositioned back a month or so ago. Look at this.”

  There was one little part in which a shadowy figure was briefly seen moving back into the woods from the shed after John had gone in there. It was a few minutes after he entered so we could only conclude that it was the killer. The person moved quickly, and took that same path that the killer of Alyssa had taken. But looking further he saw no one come back into the camp, or any activity.

  That left the note, “This is payback, bitch, Peace”.

  What did it mean? Was this a payback for Alyssa? It would seem that had to be it. The note, the position of the body, this was planned, well planned. The scene said, “This was the person who killed that girl, and now it is his turn.”

  I mean it could be that it was a payback for our killing the two snipers that killed Lauren and Marisa, but that made no sense. And what about the “Peace” part, did that mean not to worry we were at peace, or was it the name of the “Ghost”. I guess Billy was right about the “ghost”. There was one, but it was very much alive.

  We are now in full wingman mode, no one walks alone. Well, there are a few of us that tend to go solo, but very few.

 
Margo came to me and said, “I want to go out and track the Ghost, I am the best person for it, and you know it.”

  “Wait” I said. “At this point we needed some time to figure a few things out. I know that the trail may grow cold, but it just does not seem wise to just run out there willy-nilly.”

  In the back of my mind it was if we are really at peace with whomever killed John there is no need other than curiosity of who it might be and the details of the story. But that is not so much the feelings of the rest of the group and The Three, they want answers.

  While I was in the fog, Charlene had stepped back up and replaced Anne in The Three. It was a logical choice. There were not many who really wanted it and I was in no condition to even consider it.

  I was able to persuade them to take a little time to allow everything to calm a bit, and at least develop some plan to go looking around. It also gave me a chance to see what, if anything, Steven could do from the air. If we could find some infra-red stuff, the search could be pretty easy, this is a thinking game rather than rush out and hunt game.

  Sept 13th

  So much for the thinking game, I do not know if it was a death wish or just old age that came into play but Cyril decided that he and Biter would go out and find the Ghost. He sneaked off early this morning. He can hardly see, he is 90 years old and he gets winded easily. We did not realize what he had done until late in the afternoon.

  No one ever expected him to do such a thing, and it was not unusual for him to miss the lunch meal because he was napping. But when we figured it out we had Lance run the videos to see if we could see which way he went. When we saw that he had taken the same path behind the shed where Alyssa had been killed, we started to get search teams together. He could not have gone that far.

  As we walked toward the path, there he was. He was just standing there. When asked he simply said, “I met the Ghost and she brought me back to the camp.”

  Cyril and the Ghost had talked a little and she said that she had been watching the biker group for a while and Alyssa was a friend. When the bikers joined us she started watching us. She told him that she thought basically we were okay, and would like to meet with us. But that the first meeting would be just her and Margo, actually she said “The Hunter Girl”.

  So now there was a great deal of talk aboutthe Ghost and the idea of the meeting. Cyril got a good ass chewing from Arcelia, then me, then Margo and probably a couple of others. But ironically in his stumbling about he had succeeded in his goal.

  Sept 14th

  Margo left this morning to find the Ghost, or just as likely for the Ghost to find her. It was about noon time when they walked into camp, laughing and chatting like a couple of long time school friends. They made an interesting pair, Margo in her brown leather flight jacket, army boots and black jeans while the Ghost looking like a soiled display mannequin from L.L. Bean or Bass Pro in camouflage.

  The Ghost, her real name was Delaney, was a little older than Margo, about 17 I would guess. She was kind of tall and slender, but then at this point slender was the trend for all of us. Margo made introductions to the group that gathered near the flag pole. It was kind of the central outdoor meeting place with benches and a fire pit.

  Delaney began to tell the tale of how she got to where she was. “Alyssa and I were BFFs at Hinsdale High.”

  “We played soccer together. The team had been coached by him, your John. He raped and fucked with a number of the other girls. He was a good coach so the school let him get away with it and made us be quiet. Alyssa and I got sent to private schools. Alyssa was still ‘in love’ with him, was sure that he was going to take her away.”

  “I knew it, the rumors were true” whispered Grace, a little louder than she planned.

  “When the world turned around, Alyssa ran away toward Hinsdale so that she and John could be together. When Alyssa was grabbed by the biker gang, I had stayed close. I saw how they treated her. Sometimes she could sneak away into the woods and we would meet up. I tried to talk her into running away but she was scared.”

  “When the two groups joined Alyssa was very happy to find John and she was going to make it known that they were in love and going to be together forever. But there was one small problem; John was never interested in that, she was just a booty girl to him. He lured her to the shed and killed her.”

  “I saw the two of them go into the shed, I heard her talking to him, telling him her plans and then John came out, in the jumpsuit and that he dumped it in the woods. At first I thought that they had just met up but Alyssa did not come out of the shed so I checked on her. When I saw, I wanted to hunt him down and kill him right then and there but the discovery of the body and the subsequent frenzy prevented that. But I made a vow, to Alyssa.”

  There was a silence over the group; I am not sure what everyone was thinking. I had a lot of questions, but what she said all seemed to fit. She was definitely a survivor and someone who could help us to get through this and the winter. But the question was what she wanted to do. She had been on her own for a while. Did she even consider settling down? That was a question that would have to be posed.

  “I want to head back to my camp. Margo knows where it was so we can keep in touch.” And then, she just got up and left. But before she did she hugged Margo. They were friends now.

  After she left there was a lot of talk among everyone, “What do you think?”, “She is a killer?”, “She is just a kid?”, but in the end it was Cyril who really put it into perspective. “She saved my life, and what she did for her closest friend was a very honorable thing. She is a good person who circumstances made do some not so nice things”

  Sept 15th

  Over breakfast the overwhelming attitude was that Delaney should join us, if she wanted to. Margo asked “Can I go out to her camp and ask her?”

  The idea was agreed to by The Three.

  Margo packed up to go after breakfast. Cody wanted to go too and that seemed a good idea. But what surprised me was that Lance, Emo, Tech Geek Lance wanted to go too. He has never been big on playing outdoors. I think we know what that is all about.

  A mundane day at the camp, I did not have much to do so I started going through some of Anne’s stuff. The clothing was pretty easy I just boxed it up and we put it into a storage cabin. One never knew what we might need in the future. There were a couple of her T-Shirts that brought back some fond memories of trips we had taken back before the end of the world.

  Years ago, B.M. (Before Margo) Anne and I would head out West and spend a week or so just driving around sightseeing. We would mostly have a good time but it was like the week was divided into two separate trips. One half would be just perfect, we would get along and have great times and really seemed like there was that special relationship. But then the other half it would be a little uncomfortable to not good at all. The weird part was we never knew which part would come first. And when we got back home, well that was something else. We never lived together. In fact, for the most part, we never even spent all that many nights together yet we hung on for thirty years.

  The depression and sadness hit hard when I found the papers that she had brought along. Years ago I had written a playful little series of children’s stories called “The Unshiny Knight”. They were sort of a biographical piece about our relationship. I knew she had kept a copy, but I did not think she had taken it along when we packed to run from South Windsor.

  THE FLUFFY MUFFINS

  Once upon a time there was an Unshiny Knight. He had just finished a hard night of keeping the kingdom safe from evildoers and ne'er do wells. He was very tired. But he had one more mission before he could return to his castle and bond with his two fearsome little lions.

  You see he wanted to bring a special treat to his fairy princess. He thought and thought as he rode along on his proud steed. At first he thought that a bouquet of flowers would be a pleasant surprise for the princess. She could awaken to the beautiful fragrance and it would start her day in a very sp
ecial way. But look as he could, he was not able to find a flower in the land. This made the Unshiny Knight very unhappy because he wanted something special for the princess.

  As luck would have it however, he happened to ride over a crest in the hill and saw a solution to his problem. It was the Olde Donut and Bake Shoppe. An inspiration came over him.

  "I will bring my princess a jelly filled donut," he said aloud.

  The Unshiny Knight walked into the Shoppe and looked in awe at the many different types of pastries and goodies that were there. He was all ready to order a jelly filled donut when he remembered that his beloved princess was far too delicate to eat such a greasy thing. He was crestfallen for a minute until he saw racks and racks of big fluffy muffins. There was flavor after flavor.

  "May I help you?" The cute little bakery maid asked.

  "Yes, I would like a muffin please," said the knight.

  "Any particular kind?" She asked.

  Well this caused the knight to stop and think. There were so many flavors. He looked and the first kind he saw was a corn muffin. But that wasn't a good idea. Corn would remind her of his sometimes goofy sense of humor. Then, there was the orange-cranberry. But that wouldn't do either. It was much too sour a taste for so sweet a mouth.