A. R. Shaw's Apocalyptic Sampler: Stories of hope when humanity is at its worst

by A. R. Shaw

“What do you want?”

  “I have something for you…and the boy.”

  “What is it? We don’t need anything…”

  His eyes stared through her again, and she knew he doubted her words.

  “Elk meat. Do you know how to butcher it out?”

  “Ugh…I’m sure I can manage. Thank you.” She opened the door wide for him to step inside.

  “Don’t let anyone into your home,” he said in an urgent warning and then spied the boy peeking around the corner at him. She turned and saw Ben waving at the hermit.

  “Well, you might as well come inside. I doubt you’d hurt us. Besides, you’re letting all the cold air in with the door open.” She found she was shaking already with the freezing air engulfing her.

  He must have noticed because he stepped inside, and she took two big steps backward with the Glock still behind her back. He closed the door behind himself and bolted the lock, and when he stood right in front of her, she realized he loomed over her and was at least six feet tall. He’d taken the heavy pack off his back and stretched and then looked at her and the boy as if he was assessing them.

  “Always use the deadbolt, even during the day now. It’s not safe. Anyone can get through with one kick.”

  His voice, she thought, was deep and wounded even though he was using it to condemn her now. She nodded that she should keep the door bolted.

  He removed his snow-covered coat and hung it near the door and removed his knit hat. His hair stood out all over. He untied his boots and left them on the tile to drain as the ice melted and puddled all over. As he warmed, she noticed an odor coming from him. A mix of sweat and something else. She was sure he wasn’t one to bathe every day considering he lived in the woods. He didn’t smell filthy, just like a man who’d worked all day from sunup to sundown. She remembered Roger smelling the same way after working out or coming home from a long run.

  He stood there in his stocking feet waiting for her to usher him inside further. Then he said, “Can you show me to the kitchen? I’ll help you get this parceled out.”

  She didn’t say anything or move a muscle. She wasn’t sure she wanted him in her house, but then again something inside of her didn’t want him to leave, either. He was protective. He was strong, and something in her trusted the man even though she shouldn’t.

  A slight smile pulled up the corner of his lips. “You can hold the gun on me the whole time if you think that will make you feel safer. I’m not going to hurt you or your son.”

  She’d forgotten she had the Glock in her hand, but he hadn’t. The hand holding the gun, moved down to her thigh so that it was in plain view at her side.

  He looked at the Glock 17 and then looked her in the eyes again. “Do you know how to fire that weapon?”

  She nodded.

  He looked skeptical.

  “The kitchen is this way,” Ben interrupted, and the visitor looked at the small boy before he followed him from the foyer, stepping around Maeve as he did.

  Maeve shook her head but followed the guys into the kitchen after putting the handgun back in the closet.

  “What’s your name?” Ben asked the hermit.

  Maeve watched as he set the pack down against the kitchen cabinet carefully. The bundle must weigh a ton, though he lifted it with ease. He turned on the water to let the tap warm, but even with a gas furnace only cold water ran out.

  “Sorry, we ran out of hot water,” Maeve said.

  Bishop used the nearby soap to wash his hands anyway. He looked at the boy while he washed and said, “My name’s Bishop. What’s yours?”

  “I’m Ben, and that’s my mom, I mean…”

  She stepped forward behind her son. “I’m Maeve Tildon.”

  “Yes, I know your names,” Bishop said.

  “Bishop knew your dad, Ben,” she said, not wanting her son to think she would just let any hermit or stranger into their home.

  “He did?” Ben asked, but Bishop let his silence be his answer.

  Maeve caught his reluctance to speak about Roger, but Ben did not. Perhaps that’s why Bishop was a hermit. He didn’t want to talk about anything to do with the war, not even Roger.

  “Do you have a sharp knife?” Bishop asked.

  “Yes,” she said and quickly rummaged around the kitchen to find her best tool for the job. She also retrieved a box of resealable bags to use and a marker to label the packages with.

  “We were beginning to run out of food. My car isn’t working either, so this is very kind of you. We’re also out of power, so I can’t put them in the freezer. Can I keep the meat outside?” Maeve asked, trying to find a solution.

  “No. Someone will take the meat, and the smell will attract the wildlife. Not safe to keep outside.”

  “Where can I put it then?”

  “In a cooler in the garage where the temperature is still well below freezing,” he said as he dried his hands on a towel.

  “Can I get you something to drink before you start?”

  “Water, please.”

  Maeve rolled up her sleeves and washed her hands too after she gave him the glass, which he drank straight down at once.

  Then Ben pulled himself up on the barstool so that he could watch what was going on.

  Bishop looked for a knife sharpener from the drawer where Maeve retrieved the knife, but there wasn’t one in sight, so he opened a cupboard and grabbed a ceramic mug, the big kind that a devout coffee lover would continuously refill.

  She watched him as he flipped the cup over and ran the flat side of the blade against the exposed stone. He did this a few times on each side and tested the edge again. He seemed satisfied with the sharper blade then and opened the pack of elk.

  Pulling out a clear bag with two long strips of meat, Bishop rinsed them under cold water and then patted them dry with clean towels that she’d laid out for him. He began slicing the lengths into small steaks about an inch apart, and Maeve picked them up and put them into the smaller bags, sealing them inside with as little air as possible. When they were done with those, she retrieved a large clean blue cooler from the garage and had Ben put the finished steaks inside.

  She kept out one set of steaks for their dinner later that night. Though they would have meat to eat and beans that she’d cooked on the woodstove, there were no other vegetables to go along with their meal. She had a feeling that the lack of vegetables would be an issue they would have to contend with until this weather thing passed over or when she could get to the store.

  “Um, do you know anything about cars? My truck isn’t starting, and I need to go get some supplies before this gets too bad.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other but instead of answering handed her a few more steaks. Maeve slid them into the next bag and wrote on the label, then gave the package to Ben to put in the cooler. She wasn’t sure why he had not answered her question. “I mean, if it’s not too much of a problem for you to check the truck out while you’re here.”

  “I’ll look at it. Do you have snow tires somewhere?”

  “Snow tires? Yes, they’re in the garage stacked in the corner. I know it’s a lot to ask. You must be exhausted after bringing this to us.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll take a look at it when I’m finished here, but you really shouldn’t drive around with that truck. It needs to be locked up in the garage and out of sight. I also brought a deadbolt for your back door.”

  She looked at Ben before asking the question on her mind. Scaring her son was something she was trying to avoid. “Do you think we’ll get looters as far as up here? I mean, we know a lot of our neighbors. I can’t imagine they’re the type of people to steal from others.”

  Bishop continued to slice easily through the meat and divide up what he could as quickly as possible. She thought he was probably used to being alone and wasn’t used to so much conversation at once.

  He seemed to wait longer than the social norm to respond to her questions, perhaps trying to formulate his response using the least
number of words.

  “Desperate people are dangerous. They do things you couldn’t imagine.”

  His expression told her more than the words, as if he too were trying to limit the fear in front of her son. A tingle of fright ran up her spine.

  “So you think this will get worse?”

  Again, he didn’t respond for a while. “Don’t open the doors when someone knocks. I’ll check on you every few days.”

  That certainly wasn’t enough to stave off her fears. In fact, she was more terrified than before. Not only that, the room had become quite dark with the waning light fading through the blocked windows. She lit several candles so that they could see as they worked.

  “Surely this will blow over in a few days,” she said and smiled at Ben.

  “It won’t,” he said, shaking his head while handing her a few more steaks to package.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’re in the Maunder Minimum—for years now. This will go on for at least ten years if we’re lucky. The last time this happened, the ice age lasted seventeen years.”

  Ben piped up, “Ice age? Like when the mammoths were here?”

  “Yes,” Bishop said, nodding. He was working diligently while answering when asked, though a little delayed. He looked healthy enough, but she knew he was scarred by war or at least suspected that was the case.

  Once he’d finished boning out the last hindquarter, his arms were completely bloodied. Bishop washed them in the frigid water from the tap and then moved the heavy chest full of elk steaks out to the garage while Maeve held a flashlight to guide the way. It was completely dark outside by then. He set the chest next to the inside wall of the garage. “The tires are over there,” she said and flashed the beam in the corner of the garage.

  He nodded and then stepped inside the house next to her and closed and locked the door to the garage. “Keep this door locked all the time, too. Even when you’re inside,” he said.

  Nodding, she replied, “Um, would you like to take a shower while you’re here? The water’s cold, but you could clean up, and I’ll make the steaks. The least I could do is feed you for all of this work you’ve done for us.”

  He didn’t delay in his response this time. “No,” he said and stepped around her.

  “O…kay,” she said, following him back to the kitchen where she found him cleaning the knife he’d used with care.

  It wasn’t that he was rude before, she thought, but how do I communicate with this guy? Maeve began cleaning up their mess with hot, soapy water that she’d heated on the woodstove, scrubbing the counter free of blood.

  “Do you have extra 9mm ammunition for the Glock?” Bishop said, interrupting her thoughts.

  She looked up at him with a blank stare. “Uh, I think there’s some bullets in a box upstairs.”

  He let out a somewhat frustrated breath.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t pay attention to this kind of thing. Roger took care of all of that.”

  He nodded as if he understood. “Still, you need to keep the ammunition with the weapon, near you at all times, so that you don’t have trouble getting to it in a time of crisis. I can clean the Glock and show you how to reload the magazine and make sure it’s in good working order while I’m here if you’d like.”

  It was the most words he’d strung together at one time, and Maeve stood there with her mouth slightly open when just earlier she’d been pondering how to deal with the man of few words. So he can talk…She smiled at him and said, “Yes, please. Honestly, I know next to nothing about the weapon, though Roger took me out to the range several times.” Finding him staring right into her eyes, she had to look away. “He just always took care of the maintenance. I don’t even know how to load the magazine.”

  “It’s no problem. I’ll show you. The fact that you know it’s a magazine instead of a clip, is a good thing.” With his voice lower than before, she realized he too had a difficult time remembering or talking about Roger.

  “I’ll be right back then,” she said, dropping the cleaning towel on the counter. She ran upstairs to retrieve the kit Roger kept for her Glock and the few boxes of the 9mm bullets she had in her possession.

  When she returned, she found Bishop had knelt down with Ben in the living room, showing her son how to fix the axle of one of his toy trucks. “See, you can snap it back into place if you push right there.”

  “It hurts my thumb when I try,” Ben said.

  “Then use something like the edge of the bricks near the woodstove to add more force. Go ahead and try.”

  She waited before interrupting them. Rare was it that her son had a man like his father around, and Bishop was the closest possible person fitting that description.

  Taking his toy truck to the woodstove, Ben held the axle in place and levered the metal bar over the opening of the tight plastic axle. He used his hands to push down and leaned in to add more force. An audible snap was heard, and he quickly picked up and turned over the truck and spun the wheel. He beamed. “Hey, thanks! It worked.”

  “Don’t thank me. You did all the work, buddy.”

  Then something miraculous happened. The corners of Bishop’s mouth turned up as Ben gave him a high five. The man can smile.

  The fact that instead of quickly fixing the toy he took the time to teach her son how to fix it himself was endearing. If she’d had doubts about inviting Bishop into her home before, she no longer did now.

  As her son rolled the repaired red truck over the rug, she brought Bishop the cleaning kit and bullets for her handgun.

  They sat at the kitchen table as he showed her how to release the magazine and unloaded the weapon. Then she watched as he cleaned and oiled it, taking care to answer any of her questions. Finally, he showed her how to reload the magazine. And like her son’s dilemma with the truck axle, she had a hard time popping the bullets into the magazine very well with her slender fingers.

  Though, this time, he had no easy tips. “You’ll have to work at it. Get used to the feel of sliding them in. Practice,” he said as he stood and then went to the front door and put on his outerwear and boots.

  “Are you going already?” Ben ran up and asked him.

  “Honey, if Bishop needs to go, we won’t delay him. He was very kind to bring us the elk meat.”

  “I’m going to change the tires and take a look at your mom’s truck, and then you can help me with changing the lock on the back door,” he said to Ben, who looked elated with the prospect of helping him.

  “My keys are right there on the side table,” Maeve said.

  “Keep these hidden,” he said to her, and by now she was used to him warning her about what to do. She smiled at him and nodded while she continued to clean up the kitchen.

  The last thing he said as he went through the garage door was to Ben. “Always lock this door with the deadbolt to keep you and your mom safe inside.” He knelt down to Ben’s level. “You’re old enough to do that now. Keep the doors bolted at all times. That’s your job, OK?”

  Ben nodded with a somber expression. “I will.”

  For a minute as she watched the two, it was like Roger was here again, and she had to push that image away quickly. Bishop was not Roger. Roger always had a perpetual smile on his face, and Bishop wore the opposite most of the time. No doubt that was probably a result of the war, and had Roger returned, she was sure he too would have lost his smile, but in time she would have helped him find it again.

  Bishop stood and patted Ben on the head. His eyes were sad as he went back through the garage door.

  She heard him lift the garage entrance manually and rummage around in there.

  Meanwhile, she warmed a cast-iron skillet on the woodstove and cooked two of the steaks, seasoning them with only a little salt and pepper. She’d added another log to the fire, and soon the smell of frying meat permeated their senses. When Bishop arrived earlier, they’d not even had lunch, and now it was already dinnertime.

  Ben was trying to sneak peeks a
t Bishop through a crack in the window while she cooked.

  “Is he still out there?” Maeve asked him, though she had no idea how he could see in the pitch dark.

  “Yeah, he’s working on the tires. I can only tell because of the flashlight moving around once in a while.”

  By the time the steaks were done, she had heard the engine to her FJ start outside. He pulled the truck into the garage, and then she heard the rattling sound of him closing the garage door again. She had no doubt he wouldn’t forget to latch the door manually as well.

  He came through the door leading into the house and handed her the keys to her FJ. “It’s running fine now. The engine was probably just cold. I put it in the garage,” he said and then picked up his pack and pulled out a deadbolt lock with a set of keys and headed to her back door off of the kitchen with Ben trailing him.

  He soon pulled out a multiuse tool that she thought he must have brought along with him and replaced the flimsy lock with the deadbolt. Ben watched him the whole time, and Bishop handed him things to hold for him as he worked quickly and carefully to keep the cold air out of the house.

  When he was finished and was about to leave, he said, “Maeve, if you’re going to go somewhere, please don’t go far, and do it tomorrow but no later than that. After tomorrow, even your kind neighbors, those you’ve known since you moved here, will start to become desperate, and desperate people are very dangerous. I’ll be around. I’ll check on you and Ben in a few days.”

  Those words of warning made her stomach tighten. She was just beginning to become scared before he came, and now she was utterly scared through and through, and perhaps that was his point. She should be afraid. Fear enabled survival; that was a concept she was learning.

  “All right. What if…what if something happens and I—we—need your help before you check in on us?” She felt stupid for uttering those words as soon as they left her mouth.

  “I’ll be back,” he said and opened the back door and shut it just as quickly to keep the cold outside in the dark with him. Ben rushed over to the door and locked the deadbolt behind him. Her son was now the keeper of the house locks and seemed to take the job seriously.