He thought she sounded like a poet, ”I understand what you’re saying,” he said.
“They’ve made me realize what people can be like; that they can be animals who will do anything they can get away with, if they’re given half a chance. They’ve made me hate people. And they’ve made me feel dirty about myself. It’s not something I would have believed could happen to me. I feel as though I won’t be clean until I can go back and kill every one of those bastards.”
“Be careful,” he said.
“Careful of what?”
“You don’t want to become like them.”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t want to become the kind of person you hate.”
“If it meant I’d be able to kill them all, I wouldn’t care.”
A long silence ensued. She knew what she said affected him.
Finally, he asked, “Did you feel dirty last night?”
She wanted to be careful with her answer. “A little bit, at first, but you were so gentle and caring…”
She let him kiss her.
“Can I tell you something else?” she asked.
He nodded.
“I told you that you scared me when I first met you. Even though you saved us, Mostly, I was scared of you because of what they did to me, what they were going to do to Whoops, and what they did do to Anne. I didn’t know what you were going to do to me or Whoops. But I didn’t have any choice; I had to go with you. I couldn’t admit it to myself, then.”
“I’m sorry I scared you,” he said.
“You scared the shit out of me,” she laughed. “I told you before, you were so quiet. And it seemed like you were always watching me and I didn’t know why. It was creepy. But now I think I know why you were that way.”
He was confused. “Why?”
“I think you wanted to see if I was going to be like your wife. You don’t want to go through that again. You’re not mad at me for saying that, are you?”
He thought that was insightful. “I was watching you. I didn’t think about why. But maybe that was why I did…how old did you say you are?”
“Never mind,” she said. “I tried to hate you because you scared me because you wouldn’t talk to me and you kept taking Whoops away from me.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t say that. Now I know why you were doing it…now that I know what happened to your kids. But if you’d had said something…about why you were taking Whoopsie away from me…” She thought a second. “I probably wouldn’t have believed you. Not at first, anyway.”
He laughed.
“Don’t laugh at me,” she said, and he just laughed harder.
She hugged him.
“Can I ask you a question?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“Do you like me now?”
“A little bit,” she said holding her hand up with her thumb and index finger about a quarter inch apart.
“That’s better than nothing,” he said.
She laughed. “It’s a start.”
They lay there and stared into each other’s eyes.
“Zach,” she finally said, “I want to go back to the road. I want to go down south and find my Mommy and my Dad and my brother, Robert. I have to.”
She could see the effect saying that had on him and she continued, “But, then again, now I want to stay here with you. We’re safe here…me and Whoops…and I’m starting to like you…Okay, not just starting. I think I liked you right from the start, when you saved us in the field. But like I said, I was scared of you, too, and I didn’t trust you. The way men are treating women now, in the ice age, I think you had to prove yourself to me just as much as I had to prove myself to you. And, even though you did, you proved yourself again and again and again, I was so scared, I couldn’t see it.”
She hugged him again while trying not to squish her sister. But Whoops seemed to like where she was.
“I guess you’re right,” he said. “But I think I was making you prove yourself to me, too. And I’ll tell you, you also did it—proved yourself—again and again and again. But I was skeptical. Even though I loved Sandra…and I still do…I don’t want to go through what I went through with her, ever again.”
“And?” she asked. “Where’s that leave me, now?”
“You’re different. But…until yesterday, I thought you didn’t like me…or couldn’t like me. I actually started to think you were just plain loony.”
She laughed. But he could feel her tears running off her face and onto his cheeks.
“Hey, it’s your turn not to laugh,” he said. “I entertained the notion that you were either a psychopath or a homicidal maniac.”
She laughed again.
“I told you not to laugh.”
“I’m not. I’m smiling out loud.”
“I want you to know,” he said, “Whoops and I talked about you and we decided you can go back to the road anytime you want. But she said she’s going to miss you if you do.”
“Oh,” she said and laughed again. “She talked to you about this?”
“Yes. It was a very nice conversation.”
“What else did she say?”
“She said Stupid would miss you.”
“And what else?”
“She said I’d miss you, too.”
She gave him a kiss. “Would you? How much?”
He held his hand up with his thumb and index finger about a quarter of an inch apart.
She laughed and kissed him once more.
“Why would you miss me?”
“Because you’re the best piece of ass within thirty miles.”
She punched him. “Tell me why? Really. I have to hear it.”
“You already know why,” he whispered.
“Would you make me stay if I wanted to leave?” she asked, and as soon as she said it, she realized it might be the wrong question. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said it that way.”
“It’s okay. I didn’t make Sandra stay. She tried to stay with all her might. She just wasn’t cut out for it. And because I didn’t know what to do about it, I was less than helpful to her. I think that made it worse for her.”
“Do you feel guilty about that?”
“Of course I do.”
“What would you have done…if you’d known what she was going to do?”
“Don’t think I haven’t wrestled with that question. But I just don’t know…really, I don’t.”
“That’s okay,” she said.
“Can I ask you something else?”
“I think you’re going to, anyway.”
“When you called me the C-word…” She hesitated. “Were you really calling Sandra that?”
“You’re not going to let me forget saying that, are you.”
“I’m not holding it against you. It’s just that, after hearing you talk in your sleep…”
“What did I say?”
“I don’t think you really want to know.”
He thought a second. “Was I saying things about Sandra?”
She nodded. “You were yelling at her.”
He realized she was right, he didn’t want to know. But he said, “I’ve been taking a lot out on you because of her, haven’t I?”
“It’s okay,” she laughed. “I can take it. Last several days, I’ve discovered I can take a lot of shit and still bounce back.”
That was another difference between her and his wife, he thought. He hugged her harder. He thought he should feel guilty, but he didn’t.
“Can I ask you about your kids?” she said.
“Go ’head.”
“What were their names?”
“Sarah and Matthew.”
Now that they had names, she started to cry. “Tell me what they were like.”
He thought a few seconds. “Matt was quiet, always watching, introspective, and very sensitive. I didn’t think he was built for the ice age.”
Probably like his mom, she thought.
“Sar
ah, on the other hand, was insane; she bounced off the walls, she was funny and daring. She was a real daddy’s girl. Even at five, she insisted on helping me with everything. She was trying to grow up as fast as she could. If she’d had her way, she’d have run the house, done all the chores, and eaten all the applesauce downstairs.”
She laughed again. “They’re beautiful in the pictures I’ve found.”
“And now they’re dead,” he said.
She put her hand on his chest so she could feel his heart. “They’re always going to be alive in here,” she said.
He hugged her for a long time and when he let her go they lay there without talking for a while. Whoops seemed to be interested in the world around her and they watched her look at the ceiling, the blankets, and at them.
Finally, Danielle said, “I know what we did last night…several times, in fact…but I still don’t want you to see me with nothing on.”
“Is that why you have the covers pulled way up over you?”
“Yes, and I’m not getting out of bed.”
“It’s okay,” he said.
“I know I’ll get used to you seeing me, but, right now, I’m still kind of embarrassed.”
“That’s okay, too.”
“But I’m not sorry about last night,” she averred.
“Can’t say I am, either.”
“But I am sorry about one thing.”
He looked at her inquisitively.
“My period. I’m glad we put the towels down, but I think I still made a mess of the bed.”
“We did.”
“How do you know?”
“I looked.”
“You looked? You saw me naked?”
“Yes.”
“While I was sleeping.”
“Yes.”
“Now, I am embarrassed.”
He kissed her. “It’s not as bad as you think.”
“You don’t have a lifetime supply of tampons here, do you?”
“No.”
“What happens after they’re gone?”
“You make that stuff, just like they did in the old days.”
“How?”
“There are a few ways. One way they used to do it was to use cotton materials and stitch a pad that was a dozen or so layers thick, then maybe four inches wide and a foot long. It’d have a couple of ‘tails,’ one at each end that would tie around a belt that fit around the waist. After each use it was rinsed out well, washed, and dried for future use.”
“Kind of the way we’re making diapers for Whoopsie?” she asked.
“Yeah. And another way was to make a cloth pouch that could be filled with dried grass or leaves and worn the same way. After it was used, you threw away the contents, washed the pouch, and reused it.”
“Figures you’d know stuff like this. Let me guess, though: You read it.”
“Yeah.”
“Like I say: It figures.”
They lay there another few minutes and watched Whoops.
Finally, she said, “I’m going to have to take a shower or something.”
“On any given morning, there’s only enough water for one shower. Then we’ll have to wait a few hours.”
“Then we’ll have to take one together.”
“But I’m not supposed to look,” he said.
“Shut up.”
Δ Δ Δ
They got up, showered together, and dressed. She watched as he made breakfast and she was starting to learn where he kept the food. Afterward, he put on the set of earphones he’d had on the day before.
“What are you listening to?” she asked.
“News and weather.”
“What is that contraption?” she was examining the piece of wood on the table with the wires and clips hanging off of it.
When he told her it was a crystal radio, she asked, “Are you telling me that’s actually a radio?”
He put the earphones on her head.
“I hear something,” she said. “Voices.” She looked around. “But what’s it plug into? Where’s the electricity come from?”
He took the earphones off her and thought a second. “I’m going to give a brief explanation of how this thing works and I’m probably going to lose you. But here goes because these are things you should now know:
“Light waves and electricity are displays…manifestations, if you don’t mind me using a big word…of the same force. It’s called the electromagnetic force. And radio waves are a form of light waves, but they’re invisible. What a radio station does is use electricity to turn sound into electrical impulses, and it uses the electrical impulses to produce radio waves and sends them out in all directions through the air.
“Now, what a radio does is reverse the entire process. It absorbs the radio waves through its antenna and turns them back into electricity. Then the electricity is turned back into the original sound. The problem is that radio waves don’t produce that much electricity, so you don’t get much sound. That’s why we need the earphones. But modern radios contain things called amplifiers that amplify the electricity so they can make a louder sound and you don’t need earphones.”
“Okay.”
She followed him! He liked that.
“But why don’t you just use a real radio?” she asked.
“I’m telling you, this is a real radio. It’s the way the first radios were built. It’s simpler, more primitive than modern radios. I have modern radios here that I can plug in if I want, and I have a few solar panels on my roof to produce electricity so I can run ’em. But I discovered that modern radios create electrical waves that can be detected. Decades ago, back in World War Two, American soldiers in Europe weren’t allowed to have personal radios, when they were too close to the front, because the Germans could detect them and could figure out where they were. So, the G.I.s resorted to making radios like these, that can’t be detected. Instead of referring to them as crystal radios, they started calling them foxhole radios. But it’s the same thing.”
“And,” she concluded, “when they used those, the Germans couldn’t detect them and find out where they were.”
“That’s right.”
“And you don’t want anyone to detect you, either.”
“No. One of the rumors is that the Army is using detection equipment to know where people are. Whether it’s true or not, I’d just as soon keep as low a profile as possible. I don’t bother the Army, and I don’t want them to bother me.”
Danielle said, “My Dad used to say, ‘Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.’”
He smiled. “It’s true.”
“Where did you get the plans for the radio?”
“Off the Internet, when there still was one.”
“I should have known.”
“Listen to the news and the weather,” he said and she let him put the earphones back on her. “We’re picking up a radio station out of Crescent City, just over the border in California. But don’t believe everything they say. They’ll be taken off the air if they don’t spout the approved line.
“I also listen to some of the ‘Jesus’ stations because they often have news that isn’t filtered by the government. Though their views and analyses are often skewed toward religion and salvation, I can often get a sense of what’s really happening locally from what they have to say.”
“Is this the Crescent City station?” she asked.
He nodded. “They’re replaying the President’s Weekly Address in about five minutes, if you want to hear what he has to say.”
She listened to the end of the news broadcast. The weather followed. After that the station segued into the replay of the President’s address. It ran about ten minutes and, when it was over, she removed the headset and asked, “Does the government really have food to be distributed?”
He shook his head. “Not enough to save very many people. Food is so scarce, most Americans are going to die if they’re not dead already.”
“The gover
nment would take everything you’ve got if they found out where you are, wouldn’t they.”
“In a heartbeat,” he replied.
“Is there really a revolution going on in the country now?” she asked. “Is that why he’s talking about the outlaw states?”
“It’s really a war of secession.” He explained what secession meant. “What we now call the warm states can barely feed themselves and they don’t want to share what they have with anyone else. It’s a matter of survival. So they’ve seceded and they’re either setting up a separate country or they’re forming a bunch of independent countries. I don’t think we can be sure, yet. But, in the meantime, they’ve formed an alliance.”
“The President says there’ll be penalties, without trial, for anyone damaging roads maintained by the Army. He’s really talking about the road pirates, isn’t he?”
“Yup. They’ve already warned people about the roads and bridges and they’re making examples of anyone who goes against the warnings. It’s pretty well known that about eight months ago they killed hundreds in a compound near Trinidad, California, because they destroyed a bridge on the 101 so they could stop traffic and rob the caravans. But the story goes that, because the Army uses that bridge, too, they went in and killed every man, woman, and child living there. No one’s done any damage to the 101 since.”
“That’s why the Bradys don’t do it?”
“And that’s why the LaCroix’s won’t do it either,” he said.
“That means the 101 will remain open.”
When he didn’t respond to that, she knew he wanted her to stay.
“I can’t imagine why anyone would become a road pirate. Can you?” she asked trying to change the subject. But she became uncomfortable when he didn’t answer right away.
Finally, he said, “I can understand why people do it.”
She pulled back to look at him to see if he was serious. He wasn’t smiling.
“I didn’t expect that answer from you. I expected a big ‘No.’”
“It’s not something I’d want to do,” he said. “But I’m not going to starve to death for some ideal. And, now that you and Whoops are here—and I hope you stay—what do you think I’d do if it came down to a choice between becoming a road pirate and watching you two starve to death?”
Danielle Kidnapped: A Novel of Survival in the Coming Ice Age Page 32
