She scurried to the canned goods section and was delighted to find a good supply remained. She took the most efficient things she could find, lots of beans, colorful veggies, and fruits. It pained her on some level to provide the Family with Sickfood, but food was food these days. In addition, she grabbed batteries, candles, cigarette lighters, and playing cards for the kids.
Shifting her focus to the pharmacy, Fi grabbed the basic First Aid stuff and then hopped the counter. That was when she noticed that though the pharmacy had been looted, only certain things were missing. Whole sections of shelves had nothing, while others were still packed. Curious, Fi scanned the labels.
“Aaaaah, of course,” she said, shaking her head in disapproval. “They stole all the narcotics.”
The moment she said it, her disapproval transformed to sadness. Doc’s concern that they wouldn’t be able to find narcotics was on the mark, she realized. Of course, she pressed her lips together in understanding. Who didn’t want to just fade out and disappear? It was tempting. Focus Fi! She reminded herself and turned back to look for the other things that Doc had requested like antibiotics, simple analgesics, and anti-nausea meds for Maggie. She grabbed everything, as well as some vitamins. Mission accomplished, Fi thought and she made her way back outside and snuck across the road to the mall.
After nearly an hour of trying, she finally found a way inside. A metal door on the backside was jammed, but not locked. Grunting, she worked it open inch by inch until she could squeeze through. Though it cost her extra time and energy, Fi spent a few moments working the door open farther in case she needed an escape route. Sweating as she worked, Fi congratulated herself on this strategy. Sean would be proud. As she made her way into the mall itself, she kept to the wall with her gun drawn. Some of the stores had locked gates, but she was pleased to see that many were open.
Spotting a mall directory, Fi scanned the area. The directory was out in the open and the skylight above allowed soft moonlight to drift into the space. She would be visible. Gun ready, she stepped into the grey light and tiptoed to the directory. Darn it, she thought, it was too dark to see the words. She blinked and listened for a moment without breathing. Her eyes felt ultra wide and her pulse fluttered like a hummingbird in her neck as adrenalin coursed through her. The mall was silent, so she took the risk to light the directory with her tiny LED compass.
“Bingo. Sporting Goods,” she murmured and headed out. With gratitude, Fi found that the sporting goods store was wide open. She worked quickly, grabbing nylon tents to replace the tarps they used right now as well as packs and rain gear for the Coopers. Placing one inside the other and the rolled up lightweight rain suits inside, she clipped the final pack to hers and strapped it down with a bungee. Efficiency defined all her actions now, even packing.
There was no way to know if she would ever have this much access to survival gear again. Every decision was a tough call. Fi wished she could take it all. With the space she had left, she added some hi-tech underlayers for warmth and one small lightweight metal pan. They had one utility knife, but it was absolutely essential, so she grabbed two more. It was too bad that the place did not have ammo, she thought as she scanned the shelves. Oh well, she hadn’t used any of theirs yet, right? Glad that she had asked about shoe sizes, Fi found hiking shoes for the Coopers and stuffed those into her pack. It was pretty full, she realized. Time to go.
Fi headed back toward her escape route and passed a fancy department store that stood open. She stood for a moment in front of the store, feeling transfixed. Unable to resist its magnetic pull, she crept inside. Her heart pounded. It was so stupid, she knew, but it was also oddly fun. She realized that she could take anything she wanted. It was like a dream shopping spree. Feeling silly, she took a deep breath. She realized that she couldn’t take much and that she shouldn’t take much that wasn’t practical, but still it reminded her of how she used to feel before, when shopping was something she did for fun.
In that moment, she made the decision to get something for all the ladies. Though she had no idea when she would get a chance to wear a tangerine silk dress, she grabbed it anyway. Just a few things, Fi thought as she flipped through the options.
“Oh!” she murmured as she spied some great chunky necklaces and bracelets. Kiara and Zoe would love them. Next, she picked a draping blue crepe dress for Maggie and a navy cowlneck cashmere tunic for Aliyah. For Rachel she selected a soft, floaty, pink cotton shift. Everything was light and small and Fi was able to stuff the rolled items into the cracks and crevices of her pack. What the hell, she thought. We can each carry one nice thing and we can wear them one day when we get to Eden. Who knows why this touch of humanity mattered to her, but it did. For a moment as she made her selections, she remembered being someone else before…well, before she became who she was now. Fi heard a shoe squeak and she froze.
“Hey!” A voice shouted. She snapped off her compass and stood and bolted, her feet flying beneath her at her top speed. When I am found, I will run. She raced to the escalator, zipping her pack and pulling it onto her back as she rushed down the frozen stairs. Don’t look back, she thought, keep running! She could hear more than one male voice behind her shouting and laughing.
“It’s definitely a girl man!” one shouted. Shit, Fi thought, her heart pounding as she bolted down the center of the mall. Her head swiveled, seeking a place to hide or escape. Hiding is better, she thought, if it’s a really good place. She spotted a small opening in a storefront whose gate was nearly closed. Turning back, she squeezed through the tight opening sideways, wrenching her pack behind her. The shouts were farther behind her now. Thank God for my speed, she thought. Winding between metal racks in the dark, Fi made her way to the back of the store.
A closed cabinet mounted high on the wall behind the register looked just big enough to serve as a hiding place. Shelves adjoined it on either side and she scrambled up them like a ladder. At the top, she slid open the cabinet door and pulled herself into it from below. Wiggling into the dark space, she realized that she was small enough to ball up inside and still pull her pack in between her legs. Her fingers slid the door closed just as footfalls passed the store.
Her heart raced from exertion and adrenaline, and she struggled to slow it with deep breaths. This was a very good hiding place, she told herself. There is no way that they will know you are here. She tried to calm her mind. Outside, she heard muffled footsteps and voices going past in one direction and then another. At times they stopped near her store, but then they would go away again. Trust your choice, she thought. Despite her speed, if she’d bolted outdoors they would have chased her and maybe caught her. By hiding, she could wait them out. They wouldn’t want to look for her forever.
Just then one of them spoke up. “That’s it man, let’s go!”
“Yeah man,” agreed another voice. “Who cares about this girl, let’s get some stuff and get out of here.”
The third one snarled. “That bitch! She must be hiding somewhere in here.”
“I dunno Marcus,” the other said. “She was pretty freakin’ quick. Maybe she made it to the woods.” Fi smiled to herself in the dark.
“C’mon, she’s gone. Let’s go find some food.” The footfalls grew distant and didn’t return.
After a couple hours, Fi carefully slid open the cabinet door and pushed out her pack. It landed with a muffled thud. She waited. Nothing. She kicked out her legs and hopped down. Good, it was still dark, she saw. She had time.
Fi squeezed out of the store and made her way back toward the door she’d propped open. Now she wondered if her clever plan had basically invited those Others in behind her. Thank goodness her training had prepared her, she thought as she snuck back out the open door. It was deep into the night, during that early hour when nothing moved. Well, she thought amused, almost nothing. There was that time that the Family had disturbed a sleeping herd of deer. They had been hiking in silence when pandemonium had broken loose as startled deer leapt up among
the startled Family. The memory almost made her laugh out loud as she waited in the shadows.
After five minutes of scanning the parking lot she saw nothing, so she scurried across to the safety of the woods. Once she melted into the woods she felt better, her fear passing away behind her with every step. She ran for about ten minutes and then pulled out her compass. Correcting course, she turned back toward the Family camp.
Now that her close call was left firmly behind her in town, she felt a spring in her step. In fact, she mused, she felt like Santa Claus. She was bringing great gifts. Her pack was heavy, but her heart was light.
Slow Going
Pilgrimage
----------- Fi -----------
Fi trudged wearily through the darkness. Her brain felt like a fuzzy muddle, exhausted from hours on high alert. She peered up for a moment at the black sky. The moon had already set, but she didn’t need the moon to tell her it was nearly dawn. The numbness in her brain and the ache in her feet were enough. It was time to make camp.
A soft curse and a tug on her pack told her that the Family had stopped its crawl forward. For a split second her brain shifted back to high alert as she listened for any sound besides the rustling of her Family. Nothing, she thought with a tired sigh. She flicked on her flashlight and saw that John’s pants had caught on a wild tumble of pricker bushes. Lucy gave her a little wave to let her know she could turn off the light as she silently helped him to extricate himself. Plunged back into darkness, Fi pulled on her night vision goggles.
With just a click her world went from impenetrable blackness to glowing green. Tree trunks and branches leapt forward, their forms suddenly sharp. To the west she saw what looked like a group of boulders. As she turned east, a massive yawn nearly cracked her face in half. Jesus, she thought, she was toast. Her stomach gurgled and she groaned. Maybe toast was not the best thought right now. It was time to go see if the rocks to the west would work for their camp.
“Ok, let’s go guys,” she whispered.
The Family followed, an obedient line of silent elephants, each clinging to the tail in front of them as they made their way. She knew that they were as tired of this routine as she. Walk all night, rest all day, hunt, gather, starve, nibble a little something, pack up and do it all over again. It was enough to drive you crazy.
Tonight she was grateful that they hadn’t come across any bodies. The little girls had learned to deal with the animal carcasses, but when they found dead people…Fi shuddered. Their journey was constantly providing new, disgusting lessons in how the world had changed. At least the Family missed most of it out in the woods. They might be tired and starved, but they didn’t have to see the damage. Not like she did.
She tried not to dwell on the raids too much. If she let her thoughts drift the images would rush back, popping and searing her like flashes of lightning. Pets crouched over bodies in the streets, their noses wet with entrails…listless skeletons trudging along roadways...withered children, huddled in death with their families. That was the upside of feeling so tired that your brain was fuzz, Fi thought. The best part about reaching this point every night was the forgetting…the brain leaving you completely so that only your feet remained.
Most of the Family did not want to know what Fi experienced out in the world. This new world without electricity, Internet, phones, gas, or transportation. Out in the woods, everyone could somehow convince themselves that it all was a camping trip, but in town there was no escaping reality.
Only Sean asked her questions. At times she appeased him by telling him some details, but she never told the whole story. If she had, she knew that the Family would never have let her go on another raid again.
“Uff,” she grunted as she tripped over a root. A dull pain shot through her ankle at the impact and she cursed the goggles. They always made it harder for her to feel her way over the ground. Once you were used to the darkness it was easier to just stay in it, she thought as she yanked them off in frustration. They were close enough to the rocks now that she could find them in the dark. She stepped gingerly to test her ankle and felt a dull ache, but nothing that seemed serious. She exhaled in relief. If there was one thing she couldn’t afford, it was a sprained ankle. While her eyes adjusted back to moving in total darkness, she picked her way carefully. They reached the boulders and Fi relaxed.
“Ok Family, let’s make camp here on the other side of these rocks,” she instructed. The Family filed around the boulders to begin the routine of making camp. All pulled out tarps and tents with weary fingers. An empty belly gurgled from across the clearing, followed by a sigh. Fi sighed as she noted another small hole in the tent where Kiara slept with Zoe and Rachel. Hopefully the next raid would give her a chance to replace some outdoor gear, or at least patch it, she thought as she wound her fingertip through the hole.
Once Kiara’s tent was up, Fi collapsed onto her own sleeping bag in hopes that her exhaustion would overcome her insomnia. She yawned several times, but somehow felt less fresh after each one. Her own belly twisted in empty protest and she pressed her hand onto it. Sometimes the pressure helped it settle for a while. If there was one thing that Fi had learned to accept, it was going hungry…really hungry. Most people think hunger feels like a dull ache in the stomach and urgency in the mind. Fi remembered that in the old world she’d sometimes ignore her hunger and then just forget about it until hours later when her stomach reminded her again. That was not what really hungry felt like. Really hungry felt like pain, sometimes gripping, sometimes sharp, and the urgency in your mind was hardly a ‘pretty please’. It was more of a non-stop scream of desperation. Between dark thoughts and a painful belly, Fi was surprised that she slept at all anymore. Despite this, her exhaustion won the battle as she felt her mind slip away.
Just as her consciousness faded, a hand grabbed her arm like a vise. She bolted upright and grabbed for her gun. It was dawn, and in the dim light she spun on her knees, her weapon drawn. Nothing. Her heart pounded. Only the sleeping forms of her Family and the forest surrounded her. She stared down at her arm, disoriented, the feeling of that hand still so real…but there was no one there.
Fi sank back onto her sleeping bag with an aggravated sigh. Her heart was still pounding in her chest and her face felt clammy, even in the cool morning air. She secured her weapon. It was just a dream, she realized, with a shake of her head. Well, it was the dream. Again. When she was young, just as she was drifting off to sleep, she would sometimes dream that she’d tripped and fallen. It was a sickening feeling, she thought, that drop in your stomach, just like a roller coaster. She’d always awake with a start, frightened and confused.
Now the falling dream was a ‘grabbing’ dream. This had to be the fifth or sixth night in a row that she felt that hand rip her from sleep. The hand of an Other. The hand that belonged to a man with an evil smile that caught her on a raid nearly two weeks ago. It didn’t matter that her quick reflexes left him grasping, getting only her arm. And it didn’t matter that using her training, she’d managed to break his grip and run like hell. It didn’t even matter that when he’d charged after her, she’d had the courage to fire her weapon, though she’d missed, her hands shaking with terror. What mattered was that even though she’d gotten away, the surprise and the fear still hadn’t left her.
That was why she wished that Sean would be less excited about the idea of raiding with her. The truth was that if he joined her, he would be scared to death at some point. And that would never truly go away, she sighed.
She put her head in her hands as she sat and tried to breathe the feeling away. It was then she made a mental note to practice firing her weapon once in a while, away from her camp, just to keep sharp. So far she had not killed anyone herself, but when she turned and fired her gun at that man, she’d realized that she would kill someone…if she had to…to save herself or a member of the Family. Fi lay back on her bag, too tired to think anymore.
After a time she drifted into a dreamless void as sleep
finally claimed her. She wasn’t roused when the sun burst into the sky, bringing true daylight. And she wasn’t roused by the noises of a wakeful forest. What finally dragged her mind from the depths was the sound of laughter. When she opened her eyes in surprise and searched for the source, she saw Kiara and Zoe sitting in the corner of their tent playing an old-fashioned string game they’d learned from Maggie.
With a smile, Fi rose and stretched and felt an actual sense of refreshment. Sean was up too, sitting by a log by the fire. He patted the seat next to him and she grinned. This was turning into a running joke with them. She walked over and sat.
“Good morning,” she murmured to him with a yawn.
“Hey sleepyhead,” Sean smiled. “Glad to see you actually slept some. I was starting to worry that the bags under your eyes were going to swallow me up.” She chuckled at his attempt at humor and nodded.
“Yes, the rest did me some good,” she acknowledged and then shrugged. “It’s too hard to sleep when I can’t stop thinking, you know?” She paused and Sean remained silent. She knew that he would wait, would let her get it all out at her own pace. It was why he’d invited her to join him, she knew. He always knew when she wanted to talk, even when she didn’t know it herself. She sighed.
“You know what I was thinking of Sean?”
“What?”
“How different it all is already,” she shook her head. “I mean it’s only been two months and the damage is basically done. I’m letting it depress me.” She grimaced and rubbed her forehead.
“No Fi, don’t beat yourself up,” he agreed. “It’s incredibly depressing.” He waved his hands toward their camp, where everyone they loved in the world sat dirty, tired, and hungry. “All this was preventable,” he murmured. “That’s the worst thing. This didn’t have to happen.”
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