“Yes I did. Right after I got back and took care of you. It was the last thing I did before going to bed that night.”
“I can see that,” Tim said, putting the weapon back where she had stored it.
“I do need a .30 caliber bore brush though. I only ran patches though it, but it cleaned up nice.”
“We’ll get one once the weather clears up some and I can get back on the road.”
He looked again at the calendar, and did the mental math. “Hey, it’s New Year’s Eve!”
“It is?”
“Yeah, we’ll have to have a New Year’s Eve party!” he said.
“Are you feeling up to it? I mean, you’re probably not still completely better,” Robyn said with a worried look.
“Ah, I should be alright. Besides, history will most probably repeat itself, and I’ll be sound asleep well before midnight anyway!” Tim drained off the last of his coffee, which Robyn quickly refilled. He really wasn’t feeling a hundred percent, and he thought better of a party. “Well, if you’d rather not, we can forget about it. It really doesn’t matter to me anyway. Back before The Event, I used to call it ‘amateur night’.”
“Why did you call it that?”
“Because all the people who thought they could handle their booze would go out on that night and drink and party like there was no tomorrow. They were amateurs. Me on the other hand, I am a professional drunk. I stayed home those nights mostly. I hate being in the company of amateurs!”
“So you’re saying you’re an alcoholic?” Robyn asked.
No, I’m a drunk. Alcoholics go to meetings,” Tim said, giving her a big wink. He still did feel a little drained, and decided to lie down for a nap. He retired to his bed, and Robyn busied herself around the camper, cleaning up, and reading her book. He woke around sundown, and he and Robyn played Scrabble until late. Again, he was amazed at her growing vocabulary, and had to check the dictionary several times. At the end of the game, she took a pencil and marked down the score on a small notepad.
“Okay, you now owe me $379,500!”
“I think I’ve been sandbagged,” he grumbled. “Okay, sweetheart, time to hit the fartsack.”
“Oh, alright,” she said, getting up and putting the game away. She went and got ready for bed, and when she was in the shower, Tim took a last sip of the moonshine for the night. “Nice!” he said to himself. The stuff sure was smooth. He screwed the lid firmly onto the mason jar.
When Robyn came out wearing one of his t-shirts again, she came up to him and gave him a kiss. “Good night, Daddy!” she said.
He turned to her and tucked her in. “Good night, sweetheart. Sweet dreams!”
She would sleep well that night, he knew, and it would probably be the best night’s sleep she’d had in the last few days of taking care of him.
He went to the rear of the camper, showered again, and when he was finished, crawled into bed. When he was comfortable, he lay there in the dark listening to the wind blowing through the trees outside, and thought about his lot. It could be a lot worse. He could still be alone. If that had been the case, he’d have probably died out there in the cold like one of Hemingway’s protagonists. He had one opportunity to make it right, with whatever demons he had in his subconscious, and he couldn’t fuck it up. Just by sheer tenacity… intestinal fortitude, he reminded himself, she’d saved his life. He had to do right by Robyn, and in the process try to raise her up properly. He silently thanked her mother, who most definitely did a fine job raising her so far with what limited resources she had. The kid did have mettle, that was for sure. He thought of her saying she ‘Rangered Up’ and smiled. Shit, she had more balls than some soldiers he’d known. Dragging him like that in the middle of a blizzard, stripping him and cleaning up his shit and piss. That took balls. He knew he’d do the same for her, but looked back on others he had known in the past, and wondered who really would have done the same. Not many he thought, bitterly. Surely not Connie, she’d have been too worried about breaking a nail or something. No, he had to do right by Robyn, which was for certain. The ‘Daddy’ thing made him happy too. He’d never had any kids, but he was sure in his heart that he was doing it right. He was actually enjoying it, more than he’d ever enjoyed anything else.
He woke the next morning feeling a lot better than he had the day before, got up and tossed some pants on. He checked the thermostat to the heater and turned it down some. No sense wasting gas, and it felt warm enough in the tiny camper already. He’d go out later and check the gas bottle, and make sure it was full or change it out if it wasn’t. He looked over at Robyn sleeping peacefully in her bunk. She was still out like a light, which was unusual for her. She was almost always awake before him, and would have the coffee ready for when he stirred. She must be completely wiped out from the last few days. He decided to just let her sleep. As quietly as he could, he made the coffee, put the pot on to boil, and sat down at the dinette, looking out at the winter wonderland that lay before them. Everything was still blanketed in a thick covering of snow, and a quick glance at the outside thermometer he’d put up told him it wasn’t going to be going anywhere soon. -5 F. It was a good thing they’d gotten everything stocked up. They’d be stuck there for several weeks. He looked out over the snow and watched the sun come up over the denuded trees. When the coffee was done, he got up and fixed himself a cup, and went back to his seat watching for any wildlife, but he knew that with it being this cold, most critters would be bedded down and not moving around a lot. He heard stirring from over his head, and then Robyn’s head popped into view, hanging upside down with blond hair hanging far below her, wearing a sleepy smile.
“Good morning, Sar’ Major!”
“What, no Daddy this morning?”
“Oh, you’re still Daddy, but you’re also ‘Sar’ Major!” she giggled, and hopped down from the overhead bunk, landing heavily on the carpeted floor. “I gotta pee!” she announced, and ran to the bathroom.
When she was finished in the bathroom, she came out and poured herself a cup of coffee, kissed Tim on the forehead, and sat down across from him.
“Did you sleep well?” she asked.
“I slept like a log, and I feel shitloads better too,” he said, taking a sip of coffee.
“I slept really well too. I don’t even remember you turning off the lights.”
“You were probably exhausted from all the shit you had to do the last few days.”
“And all the shit I had to clean up too!” she reminded him.
“Well, thank you for that. Not a lot of people would have done that.”
“I know, but I figured it had to be done, so I just did it. Besides, you stank!”
“Gee, thanks.”
“So, do you want to try some oatmeal this morning?”
“Okay, but you finish your coffee first. Relax a little bit,” he said firmly.
She sighed, sipping her coffee and looking out the window. “Sure is pretty out there.”
“That it is, but I wouldn’t want to be out there in my underwear for too long,” he said, and she laughed hard, and almost spit out her coffee.
“Now there’s a sight I’d like to see!”
“Not on your life!”
Robyn got up and put the teakettle on to boil and asked, “Do you think we’ll ever meet up with other people?”
“I don’t know. We probably will, considering the odds.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, before The Event, the population of the US was somewhere around three hundred and fifty to four hundred million people, not including Canada or Mexico.”
“And?”
“It’s like this. Even if ninety-nine point nine percent of the people died in The Event, that would still leave several hundred thousand people that are survivors. It’s just a matter of statistics.”
“Oh, wow. So we’ll meet up with others someday?”
“The odds are for it,” he said with a frown.
“You don’t see
m too happy about that,” Robyn remarked.
“I’m not really. It all depends on what those people are like. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
“But they could be good people like us,” she insisted.
“Yeah, but they could be bad ones too. That’s why we will be very, very careful when we do encounter anyone else.” He thought of the tire tracks he’d seen in the snow earlier in the year, heading south. What sort of people were they? And the four who took his pig, up in Beckley. Apparently they were somewhat polite, leaving him that note and all. But he was still nervous about it. The three animals he’d dealt with who killed Paul were still fresh in his mind.
“Maybe someday everyone who survived will get together and build up society again,” Robyn stated.
“Could be, but that would take years for everyone to find one another. And they’d have to do it right this time.”
“They could just follow the Constitution.”
“That they could, if they were smart. That little document that’s only seventeen pages long can make a difference, but they can’t let it get away from them like they did before.”
“You’re smart. You could do it!”
He laughed. “Honey, I may be smart, but I’m not that smart. Those men who wrote that up over two hundred years ago were far smarter than me.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Sar Major,” she said, pouring hot water from the teakettle into the two bowls with instant oatmeal and stirring them. Bringing the bowls over, she placed one in front of Tim and sat down with her own.
“You are the smartest man I ever knew. You could do it, I know you could,” she affirmed.
“Maybe I could, but I really don’t have too much faith in people, haven’t for a while.”
“You’re a ….what’s the word?” she said, looking up at the ceiling. “Cynic? Yeah, you’re a cynic.”
“No, I’m a realist. I’ve seen people fuck over one another for far too long for trivial things, just to get a leg up. I don’t want to be part of any society that condones that.”
“Then you could be king.”
“No, absolutely not, the US got rid of one king a long time ago. That would be too much, and I don’t have the ego to be king!”
“King George III, right?”
“Yes, ma’am you win the pop-quiz. No, you see, that kind of power is corrupting. It even makes good men turn bad. And absolute power corrupts absolutely. So, no thank you. I’d rather live free and in peace and be left to my own devices.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“Yep,” he said, taking another spoonful. “Remember what I told you about the American Revolution?”
“Yes,” she nodded.
“King George had all this power over in England and didn’t give a rat’s ass about the colonists. He just saw them as a tax base and a place to get cheap wood to build his fleet, and he was bleeding them dry. So when the colonists had finally had enough, they took up arms knowing that if they lost the war, they’d all be tried for treason and hanged. So they had a lot riding on one little gamble.”
“Scary thought,” Robyn said gravely.
“Those men knew it too. They had huge brass balls to do that. Anyway, what they started out to do, somewhere along the way got corrupted and the people in power forgot who they were working for, and they loved all that power. So no, I do not want to be part of any society that will let that happen again.”
“Why did it happen?”
“Because people got lazy. They expected the government to do everything for them. They forgot that ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’ wasn’t a right, just that you had the right to pursue it. The government didn’t hold the keys to happiness, you had to go out and find it on your own. That’s where it all got muddled. We forgot that little key point, and that’s where it all turned to shit.”
“Like when I played softball. We never kept score and at the end of the season we all got trophies even though some of us sucked?”
“Exactly right, sweetheart! See, when you let people fail, they strive to achieve better for themselves. It’s a natural human trait. When you give people a safety net, they give up trying.”
“So that’s where everything went wrong?”
“Well, it’s a little deeper than that, but yes, in a nutshell, that’s what did it. I don’t know when it started, it sort of crept up on us, but that’s what happened.”
“So that’s why you don’t trust people?”
“Yeah, that’s why.”
“So we won’t look for anyone?” she said sadly.
“I didn’t say that, honey. I just said that when we do travel out from here, we’ll just have to be really careful with who we meet up with. There’s probably some madman out there somewhere who thinks this is some grand opportunity to rule the world.”
Robyn said after a moment’s contemplation, “I hope we never meet up with someone like that!”
“I hope so too, baby.”
“So where will we go?”
“In the spring?” he asked, getting up and pouring himself another coffee.
““Yes, that’s what I meant. In the spring, where will we go?”
“Well, I think most of the smart people have already moved south to where it’s warmer by now. Not stuck around where it’s cold, like us dummies.”
“Speak for yourself!”
“I’m only joking. I haven’t really given it a whole lot of thought except that we’d better do the same thing— go where the weather is a little bit nicer. We do have a whole continent to choose from. I think those who have survived and were able to move as far south as they could. Florida, Texas, California… probably all the way down into Mexico. Southern Mexico along the ocean is actually rather nice.”
“I’d like that,” Robyn said, looking out at the snow and shivering involuntarily.
“Do you have any ideas?”
“Not really. I know you said it was my choice, but I don’t know enough about anyplace else to really have a good idea.”
“Well, how about this, we head west in the spring, and then south. We’ll let the place pick us, not we pick the place. Sound like a plan?”
“Sounds fun, actually!”
“Like I said, we’ll still be very careful, but that’s what we’ll do. We’ll find a bigger camper also. I think there’s a Camping World in Bluefield we can check out.”
“Sounds like a plan, Sar’ Major!” she said, smiling. At least now they had a goal to shoot for. Not long term, but it’d get them moving.
Later that night, Tim lay awake for quite some time, thinking about what they had talked about earlier in the day, and one thought kept coming back to him. Could there really be some new Adolph Hitler or Joseph Stalin out there with his eyes set on ruling the world? A chill ran through him at the very idea. If that were the case, it was very bad indeed. And it really wouldn’t end well. In the past, throughout history, it had always been left up to people like him, soldiers, to straighten out other people’s fuckups. But he was alone now, well almost alone, and he surely couldn’t save the world from some madman, could he? It took millions of men like him to save Europe and the Pacific years ago in the last great epic struggle. His very own father and two uncles were part of that great crusade, but he was just one man.
He couldn’t do that, could he? Did he have the intestinal fortitude? He’d overcome many obstacles in his life, adapted and overcome barriers, and bested enemies, but save the world? That couldn’t have been what his brother was talking about. It was all too much for him to contemplate, and he drifted off to a troubled sleep.
Chapter 11: Go West Young Man
The winter seemed like it would never end, and each cold, blustery day made way for the next in the tiny camper in West Virginia. Tim and Robyn made the best of it though, spending their time reading and playing board games, and Robyn continued with her daily lessons. Tim taught her to play cards also: Blackjack, Five Card Draw, Stud and Texas Hold Em.’ She even le
arned to deal from the bottom of the deck so well that even Tim watching carefully couldn’t pick it up. He taught her some phrases in German and Spanish he’d learned during his time spent in Central America and Germany in the Army, and again, she picked it up so fast he was stunned. But the winter was brutal, and Tim couldn’t remember a colder one. He wasn’t sure if The Event had anything to do with it, or it was just a particularly bad winter. It snowed on top of snow, barely warming up in between enough to melt the last snowfall. In between the reading and the lessons, they made preparations for their migration, as Tim began calling it. They would definitely have to find a new camper, as things were beginning to break and wear out at a continuous rate that Tim could mend, but he was having a hard time keeping up. The camper’s designers never imagined it would be used in this way, for full time living. The continuous use was taking a heavy toll. Roof vents leaked, taps on the sinks broke, and now the roof leaked in several places. Tim secretly worried about the roof collapsing at some point.
As the days eventually grew longer, the snows finally started melting, and the little creek behind their camp turned from a gently babbling brook into a raging river overnight. They became increasingly restless with each warmer day until one bright sunny day towards the end of April they decided it was time to move. They packed up everything they thought they would need into the bed of the truck. Tim expertly hitched the tiny trailer to the M880 and pulled it from its resting spot, where it had sat for over a year. The tires had sunk into the mud some, but the big diesel engine in the old M880 made it an easy job.
When they were ready, Robyn hopped into the passenger side of the truck and placed her carbine on the dashboard alongside Tim’s M4. They headed out south on RT 20. Passing through Athens, they were both a little sad. The little town had sustained them for over a year, and all in all, as little towns go, this really wasn’t a bad one. Tim noticed a ragged American flag flying from the flagpole at the local volunteer fire department across from the convenience store and Laundromat, and decided to rectify the problem. He pulled over, reached behind the seat of the truck, and retrieved a brand new flag, still in the box. He had several he’d gotten at the Walmart on a whim. Walking over, he lowered the tattered rag that was flying and raised the new one. When it was fully raised, he tied off the cords on the cleat, stepped back, and saluted smartly. Robyn followed suit.
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