The Beginning at the End of the World: A Post-Apocalyptic, Dystopian Series (The Survivor Diaries Book 2)

by Lynn Lamb

  “Well, Bailey Bug. I just some good news and some bad news. But I am very, very happy about the good news. My best friend, Penny, is on her way to the Valley too, and we will be together real soon.”

  Bailey looked up at me and said, “Having a best friend is like opening both of your arms out real wide, like this,” she demonstrated without letting go of our hands. Her eyes closed and her head leaned up to the sky. “And having a hundred butterflies land all over you.”

  She took my breath away.

  And those were today’s miracles.

  February 1

  My body is betraying me, requiring so much sleep that I am not always able to write. But I am still committed to getting our history down. So, I apologize to you, my faceless, nameless, possibly non-existent readers. I will try harder to make sure that I stay on top of it. For now, I offer you a brief summary of the last few days.

  Holly has begun to implement her plans for expanding her curriculum to include the things that I have already spoken of. I spent one day sitting in on the classes given by Charlotte and Audrey, Thomas and Ammie, and Alexis and Malcolm. They have been inspirational. I have had others come to me, like Bruce the mechanic, and Billy the electrician, offering to teach similar courses to the children.

  I have even considered teaching a course on video and documentary filmmaking. As I have become the Village scribe, so to speak, I would love to believe that someone will pick up my torch when I am no longer able to carry it.

  It’s amazing how much the children enjoy what the new teachers have to share. They sucked up everything— like how a starfish throws its stomach out to capture its prey and inverts its stomach to consume it wholly. Their hands waved eagerly as they waited to ask their questions and then mentally digest the answers.

  In other news, Jackson and Mark have seem to have figured out how to stay far from each other most of the time. Mark’s been keeping his distance from me, too. I have seen him with Violet, and I admit that it is hard to watch.

  Holly comes over to the cabin after supper to hang out while Jackson’s out on security. We talk about everything from our childhood together, to her classes, to finally meeting up with Penny in the near future. I told her about my condition, and so far she is the only one not constantly hounding me about my weight and eating habits.

  Talking about her folks is hard. They spent many a day with me at their home, helping Annie in her demanding job of single parenting. They loved me like their own, and Roy even gave me away at my wedding. Holly and I laughed and cried, mourning the passing of her two kind and loving parents. Letting go is still so hard, even after all that has taken place.

  One big update is that our time in this infernal forest is almost over. Adam told me that we should be able to find the river sometime tomorrow or the next day at the latest. I can’t wait, even if it is just for a look at some new scenery. It also means a more comfortable ride. We knock over so many bumps in the road that I feel like we are still moving even after we stop. And it is wreaking havoc with my morning sickness. The glued together little cells in my uterus do not like driving through the rocky forest. The other thing I am sure of is that they don’t like Random Meat Delight, or most other food that we have access to here. I continue to throw up just about everything I eat.

  In a few weeks, I will have a vaginal ultrasound. It doesn’t sound like too much fun, but Alexis continues to reassure me that it won’t be too bad, and that it is normal with high-risk pregnancies. The words “high-risk pregnancy” aren’t reassuring, but I have known it since the minute that little pink plus sign showed up on the pregnancy test. I am still determined to be realistic about everything, even if I don’t like the reality.

  Holly and I had one opportunity to talk to Penny and her family over the last few days. We learned some of the terrible things that they had to deal with trying to get here. With the few clues Jake and the girls had given me about their trip, it was probably similar to what they had to undergo. But like Mrs. Ingram told me many months ago, my family is strong, and I know that my friends are, too. They know how to take care of themselves and will do whatever it takes to live.

  Penny explained that after they buried her parents, they got back on the road to try and find us. It was before the perpetual snow when they made it to a small town off the main highway. It was so small it wasn’t even on the map. They decided to spend some time there regrouping and raiding homes and small stores for prescription drugs and food items. Apparently, they did pretty well there. They found a small mom and pop drug store and broke into its stockroom where they found unopened shipments of all sorts of things, from Viagra, to painkillers, to prenatal vitamins. I was tempted to reveal my pregnancy when she said that, but I decided to wait and tell her in person and away from anyone inclined to gossip. Yes, Gary, I am talking about you.

  Penny and her family found some flea bag motel in that town, and decided that it was best to stay there for a while because most of the houses held dead bodies. Apparently, this was one of the spots hit with the biochemical that killed everyone within a several mile radius. Since the hotel room where they were staying had been vacant, they didn’t have to deal with any bodies. But while they were there, Tuck and Olivia became very sick. It sounded very much like the Sneaker Wave. Penny was so smart to treat them by throwing every antibiotic they had at the illness. (I am not surprised, as she is one of the most intelligent people I know.) It took weeks before they recovered, and by that time the snows had begun.

  Not too long after that they encountered a group of Wanderers, who they called a biker gang; tomato, tomāto. They were on a rampage, breaking windows and using guns and baseball bats on anything they could find. Tuck had his mini arsenal from his shop, but they were smart and decided to flee instead of going to battle. I am glad they did.

  I know that there was a lot more to their story, but Mason demanded “his” equipment back, and we haven’t had a chance to speak since. The best news is that Gary thinks that they are only about a day away from their destination. When I know that they are safely in the compound, I will breathe a sigh of relief.

  So end the updates. Jackson just came in and he looks beat.

  February 2

  At about two in the morning the earth decided to wake. Earthquakes in California were not an uncommon event, but they have taken on a different nature since the war. They have become more jerking than rolling. It felt like someone was moving the bed back and forth with gigantic hands, trying to wake us.

  “Get Bailey,” I told Jackson.

  The alarms went off, and people began to move to their doorways and tent flaps. A few days ago, Jackson found his daughter’s old megaphone and stored it in our closet.

  “Everyone, please return to your tents and RVs, it’s over,” I announced when the sirens ended.

  And then a noise came from high atop the mountain that we had finally gotten to the bottom of last night. I ran to our back door and saw the enormous white cloud rolling downhill directly at us. I have never seen anything like it.

  “Jackson,” I yelled and he rushed in the room carrying Bailey. When he saw the magnificent puff heading downhill, he pulled me into the living room and handed Bailey over to me.

  He picked up the megaphone and opened the door. “Stay inside, stay inside and take cover.”

  He slammed the door closed and came over to Bailey and I. He sat us on the sofa and held us tightly until the rumbling subsided. Bailey continued to tremble, and we both held her while we rode out the wave of fear.

  “Is it over?” I asked.

  “I think so,” said Jackson as he rose and started towards the bedroom.

  “Don’t go,” screamed Bailey in a high pitch.

  “He’ll be right back,” I tried to reassure her.

  “It looks like it stopped about halfway down the hill,” said Jackson, pulling on his uniform pants over his boxer briefs.

  I set Bailey on her bunk and helped her change and then went to change myself. Jac
kson was gone quickly, and I hurried to get Bailey out the door.

  I held her as we made our way to the RVs where people had already begun to gather. The MT was barking orders, and people listened dutifully.

  “Fitz,” I yelled when I saw him. I wasn’t going to put Bailey down, so I trudged through the snow under her weight, as well as my own. “What now?”

  “We need to ascertain the risk of staying here, but for now, have everyone help breakdown the tents, except for the big one. Mark is radioing the compound now to see if they were hit.”

  We had word just hours ago that Gary had gotten Penny and her family there safely. My mind screamed, What if this wiped out the compound?

  I found Jackson and took the megaphone from his hands. He was trying to help Thomas with Ammie, who was going into a meltdown. “Go, do what you need to. I will help with Ammie,” Jackson told me.

  I didn’t want to leave her, but I needed everyone to start the bug out process. “Everyone, please listen.” Bailey held her ears while I spoke, but wouldn’t let me put her down.

  “We need to start bugging out. Do exactly what we did in the drills. Break down all tents quickly, and be prepared to leave them if you hear the order. When you are done, help others and then proceed to the big tent. Stay calm and we will make it, just like we always do,” I reassured.

  As far as emergencies, we handled this one very well. Ammie pulled it together and took Bailey from my arms. The two of them went to the big tent and Ammie began to sing to her. The next thing I knew, most of the kids were sitting with them singing If You’re Happy and You Know It.

  As people began to pour into the big tent, I went out to find Fitz. It was then that I peered up in the direction that our caravan had just come from. The moon was full and reflected on the snowpack that swallowed up half of the hillside. If this had happened only days before, it would have swallowed us up, too.

  Mark passed me, and I caught up with him. “Did you get ahold of the compound?” I asked.

  “Everyone is fine out there. They felt the quake and the rumbling, but the avalanche was nowhere near them,” he told me without the underlying anger to which I was becoming so accustomed. Fitz and Jackson joined us.

  “I think that we should get on the road,” said Fitz.

  “Lieutenant Keaton suggested the same thing. She can’t say whether we will have another round of avalanches, but she is concerned that we will have aftershocks that will affect the already unstable snow pack up there,” Mark told us.

  “What are her credentials?” I asked.

  “She has her Master’s in Science and Climate Change,” Jackson said quickly, almost too quickly. I didn’t have time for more questions.

  “I will have everyone ready to move in fifteen,” I told them.

  ∞

  True to my word, we were ready to go in fifteen minutes. There’s nothing like an avalanche to put a fire under people, or so it seems.

  The kids rode with their parents and Carrie and Audrey rode with their families, so Holly joined the ladies in our cabin. When Bailey finally calmed, she fell asleep, and I placed her in her bunk. How much more would she have to go through, how much more would any of us have to go through, and would we ever regain a sense of safety? I don’t think that we ever will. Call it Shell Shock, War Hysteria or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; we all have it in one form or another.

  I wished that Jackson could ride with us, but he couldn’t let Owens have his first solo ride in the tanker in the dark and under these circumstances. I was still glad for my company, though. It took us all a while to come down from the adrenaline highs, but when we did we sat in a comfortable silence until Charlotte called it. “Today I dehydrate squirrel meat, does anyone want to help?”

  She pulled a bag out of the refrigerator. She had been storing it in the cabin? I ran to the bathroom and threw up the contents of my stomach. I kept telling myself not to think about it, but that made me think about it even more. Was squirrel one of the meats in the Random Meat Delight?

  When I finally pulled it together and could vomit no more, I rejoined the group without a word about our little friend from the refrigerator. I got on the walkies and asked for Katie to begin with the morning programs. It was only about five in the morning, but hearing some reassurances from Katie always seemed to help.

  We decided to break at about eight o’clock for breakfast and to have a joint Council and MT meeting to figure out what to do from here.

  Fitz was composed and ready to make decisions with the information that we had. Keaton had conferenced with the MT and told us to keep going, in driving shifts if necessary, with no overnight stops. I had reservations about that, but it was obvious that getting out of this area quickly was vital. We were now hugging the twisting river’s squiggly path.

  “Laura, can you make a driving schedule that would allow for driving rotations?” asked Fitzpatrick.

  “Of course,” I told him. I couldn’t think of any other logical plan, so I left it at that. “I will be the one to inform the Villagers about this decision. And everyone will stay in the vehicles they are in now. How many more days will it be until we reach the compound?”

  “At the rate that we are going, and factoring in the overnight driving, and no longer needing to cut anything in our path, maybe three more days,” said Adam.

  “We will take breaks every three hours during the day, and I would like to make sure that someone works the radio at night, doing frequent transmissions to keep drivers awake,” I said.

  When the meeting broke, I went down to the ice-covered river and looked up the long Valley floor. I had no idea how far into the Valley we needed to go to find our new Village, but it looked daunting now. Jackson came to my side and took me in his arms.

  “How are you doing?” he asked.

  “Okay,” I told him.

  “How are the glued-together cells?”

  “Holding up. Jackson, before we get to the compound, I need to know what kind of relationship you had with Keaton,” I said.

  “Did someone tell you something about us?” he asked.

  “No, just intuition.”

  “It was a sexual relationship,” he told me. My stomach suddenly did back flips. “It ended when she went to the Valley, just before the war.”

  “Does she know that?” I asked.

  “We talked. She wasn’t happy,” he told me as he took me back in his arms and increased the pressure of the hug.

  “Great,” I said. “Does she know about us?”

  “I haven’t told her, but by now I am sure someone has. The Village grapevine is wide-reaching.”

  “You know that you are going to have to talk to her. Can you do it on a private channel before we get there? No one needs any more drama when we finally get to the place we are going to call home.”

  “I could try while Owens is in the bunk sleeping, but I can’t promise that it will be private. I guess you are right though. I had better get it over with and start fresh.”

  We stood for a little longer looking towards our new home and away from our old one.

  ∞

  We tried to make the most of our time in the cabin, but we did begin a sleeping rotation so that some of us could help with the driving overnight. Jackson vetoed putting me on the schedule. He was right on that one. With my present drowsiness situation, I would be a danger behind the wheel.

  Because I wasn’t with the Villagers in person when I told them about our new plan, it’s hard for me to gauge their reactions. I know that everyone is more than ready to be done with this trip, though.

  I have been getting some good b-roll footage from the window of the cabin. When we stop, I clean the outside of it so that I can keep shooting. The skies are threatening bad weather, but maybe it will hold back until we get there. It doesn’t seem possible that we will be there in a matter of days. I first heard the idea about moving us to the Valley around the middle of October, and here it is February.

  I asked Jackson i
f I could drive with him during one of the shifts, and he didn’t argue with me about it. “Owens would probably love the attention from all of those women in the cabin,” he said.

  So, after the MREs were passed out for supper, we switched places.

  We were about an hour out when Jackson picked up one of his radios and called to the Valley. “Keaton here,” said the disembodied voice.

  I saw his finger off the button and said, “No way. I shouldn’t be here for this.”

  “Wrong, you absolutely should be here for this. No secrets between us, right?” he said. “Hey, Naomi. It’s Jackson.”

  “Hey, Phillip. You all holding up?” she asked matter-of-factly.

  “They are doing a good job of it,” he said. “Hey, I called to have a talk with you about something, are you alone?”

  The voice didn’t respond for a few seconds. “Yeah, I’m alone.” Her hesitation made me uncomfortable. The whole thing made me uncomfortable, but I was the one who handed him my diaries to read. I am sure there was a lot in those to bring about his discomfort, too. I guess this was quid pro quo.

  “You know Laura, right?” he said.

  “Well, I don’t know her personally, but yes, I know to whom you are referring.” There was a long pause. “Okay, you want me to do this? Kind of cowardly, but, yes, Gary told me about the relationship. Owens told him, but apparently you haven’t been keeping it a secret. It really would have been nice if you thought to tell me first.”

  Jackson let out a long exhale. He was stressed. “You’re right. I’m sorry, but we thought that I should talk to you before we got there.”

  “We? You mean you and her. She knows about me?” asked Jackson’s now irate ex-lover.

  “Well, yeah,” he fumbled. “She sort of figured it out, but I wasn’t really keeping it a secret either.”

  When his finger was off the button I said, “You weren’t keeping it a secret? Right? Please, continue with the bang-up job you are doing of ensuring she will hate me.”