by Brad Manuel
Greg woke to sunlight streaming through the windows of the SUV. It took him a few moments to get his bearings, and he soon realized he was trapped and exposed on the highway, half a mile from the nearest woods. Unless he broke his own protocol and walked in the daylight, he was stuck.
He felt a tinge of panic, like a dog when the owner shuts the door and leaves the pet in the car. He looked at his watch, 7:30am. He had two choices, stay in the car for the next 10 hours using all of his water, or take a risk and walk in the daylight for the next 10 hours. Maybe it was that part of him that was 14 and considered himself immortal, or maybe it was the part of him that had grown up in the last two months and realized he was the only person alive within 700 miles, but Greg left the car.
“Play time is over. I have to get up to Hanover, and daytime is the best time to travel.” He spoke aloud, like he did back in the dorms. “I can do this. I can see people coming in the day. I can see animals in the day. I can avoid rocks and things that will twist my ankles in the day. Let’s go, Greg, time to move.”
Greg pulled out his map, saw an exit about 20-25 miles up the highway, and started walking. He stopped and ate a can of cold soup at noon. At 4:30 he stumbled off the highway and onto a rural road along 93N. He covered just ten miles of his route.
He found a combination general store and gas station, pulled out his sleeping bag, and slept on the floor. The next morning he filled his water, grabbed what little food was available, and hoped to make it at least fifteen miles by sunset.
The highways of Northern Massachusetts and New Hampshire are cut through mountains and valleys. The roads move up and down, winding around rivers and streams. What a crow flies in ten miles can take a New England highway twenty miles to connect the same two points. When Greg planned his trip, he did not realize how hard it was to walk long distances in New England. He assumed he could log 35-45 miles a day and would be in Hanover by the end of his third day. The late fall season meant exposure to wind and cold, and Greg was not prepared for the up and down aspect of the journey. After two days of hard walking, he reset his daily goal to 15 miles, but he never reached the goal. He spent each morning mapping how far he needed or wanted to go. If he saw a house that was close to the mark, he would stop for the night. At the end of his third day he was just 28 miles away from Ms. Berry’s house, and still over 70 miles from Hanover.
Greg found the trip to be slow and hard going, and his number one challenge was staying hydrated. He kept two water bottles in the slots on his backpack. When he finished the first bottle, he stopped at the next exit to find a way to refill. Sometimes he could get water right away at a gas station or general store, but exits were further apart as he went north, and stores were not immediately off the exit ramps. Keeping hydrated added time and effort and extra miles to his trek, but if he stopped drinking water he felt weak and his head ached. Greg might walk twenty miles during the day, but only eight of those miles were towards his destination.
Greg also needed food, and was faced with the decision of carrying weight or relying on scavenging. He opted for scavenging.
The rapture was a devastating disease, but it was custom built for survivors. The earliest symptom was loss of appetite. Supermarkets were looted and emptied, but all the looting did was transfer the food to houses where it sat uneaten. Greg had early success scavenging, but as he entered more rural areas, food was scarce to non-existent.
Despite the viscous, cold, unappealing soup he found in cans at the homes where he squatted, Greg was so ravenous he did not care what he ate. One night he considered eating cat food when it was the first and only thing he found in that evening’s home. He stayed in the ‘cat house’ and slept on a couch, but ventured next door and found stale granola cereal. The next morning he held the small can of cat food, weighing it in his palm. It was light, and would provide a quick meal when he needed it. Greg put the can on the table. “I’m not there yet.” He told himself.
The weather turned on Greg’s third day. Gray clouds rolled in and the temperature dropped to the mid 40’s as he walked. Rain fell on him in a steady mist. If the rain down poured, he would stop, but it teased him by keeping him soaked to the bone while never coming down hard enough to halt his progress. It was colder at night. Greg cut his walking time short each afternoon to find an empty home with a working fireplace. His sleeping bag was soaked and heavy. He abandoned it after the first day of rain. Greg relied on sheets and blankets he found in homes along the highway.
Seven days after leaving the broken SUV on the overpass, Greg walked through the toll booths at the end of US 93. He was sixty miles into his journey. He rummaged through the State liquor store at the N.H. state line for water and food. Greg was half way to Hanover. A trip he anticipated taking three, maybe four days, was going to stretch for at least two weeks. Greg was down five pounds in the last week, and over twenty pounds from when his mother dropped him off at Hightower. He was dirty, cold, slowly losing his sanity, and more importantly losing his will to continue.
The pocket of his backpack held two cans of cat food. Unlike the first time he found the light weight meal, Greg did not leave the cans behind when he discovered them at a house the previous night. He had one power bar left before he was out of human food, one step away from eating Super Cat Feast.
It was close to 5pm. He had an hour of light left. Dark clouds remained as rain continued in a steady drizzle. There would be no moon to help him after sunset.
Greg left the liquor store with two bottles of water and ate a snack size bag of nuts he found near a register. He quickened his pace towards the junction of US 89/93. He considered staying at the liquor store, but it had no fireplace, no food other than the measly bag of nuts, and no blankets. Greg was wet and needed a fire to dry his clothes.
He approached the intersection of the two highways at 5:30pm. He noticed a town off to his right, and went to find a place to spend the night. He walked down the South Street exit of 93 North, passing the highway motels, and continuing towards town.
There were several homes close to the exit, but Greg learned to venture further into towns to find nicer homes away from the highway. He was losing daylight, and his legs were tired, but the reward of a higher end residence was worth the extra few minutes of walking. A nicer home meant a better chance of food. Low income families did not keep large pantries. Their homes were bare after the food shortages caused by the rapture. Rural communities, like the ones he found on his trip from Hightower, were also devastated from the food delivery issues. Tonight he was in an upper middle class suburb of Concord, N.H, and had high hopes of locating food other than the feline variety in his pack.
Greg strode into the first subdivision and stopped dead in his tracks. He smelled smoke. He smelled smoke and food. He definitely smelled food. It had been months since he smelled food being cooked. It was a welcome aroma. He lost himself in the moment as he breathed it in, standing in the same spot for several minutes, dreaming of a warm dinner. He snapped out of his daze with the realization there was someone else alive, a survivor, another person.
It was past dusk, and the sun was almost gone. Greg determined the direction of the smell, and noticed light coming from a window in one of the houses just off of the street. Before he realized what he was doing, Greg ran towards the smell. He was cold, wet, and hungry, and did not want to stay outside much longer. He needed to get out of the elements and into shelter.
His heart raced in anticipation of finding a fellow survivor. His mouth drooled as the smell of food grew stronger.
“What should I do?” he whispered to himself. He went over his choices. He could avoid the survivor, like his father advised, and keep going to Hanover, or he go to the house and meet the person. The risks and rewards of another survivor were equally great. Two people could survive the winter more easily than he could alone, but meeting an evil person could be fatal.
Greg wanted to catch a glimpse of the person before deciding. He made his way to an adjacent hou
se, found the front door unlocked, and went to the second floor for the best vantage point. The light coming from the other house was from a fire. Greg was hungry before but famished after smelling the cooking food. He pulled his last power bar from his backpack, and ate his now unappealing dinner. He was still hungry, but out of food. Greg held a can of cat food in his palm. “I’m still not there yet, but I’m a lot closer than ever I thought I’d be.” He zipped the can back in his pack.
Drawn curtains blocked the windows of the other house, but Greg made out a silhouette of at least one person. Unfortunately, because it was a distorted shadow, he could not tell the gender, age, or size of the person.
He went downstairs to the kitchen to scavenge for food. There was furniture in the house, but the cupboards were bare. He pulled a drawer open and felt for utensils. It was empty. “Just my luck.” He muttered. Greg was in a house that was for sale before the rapture.
It was cat food or no food for now.
Greg went back upstairs and sat in the window for an hour watching the shadow move around the room. If it was an older person or a woman, someone he could escape, Greg would knock on the door. If the survivor was a man, Greg would leave and return with his father and brothers next spring.
The house with the fire looked new, built to mimic old New England. It was brick on the sides with a large wooden front porch. The roof and shutters were black. The fire was burning in what Greg assumed was the living room. There was little space between homes, standard for modern subdivisions. Greg could easily sit in his cold house and look down upon the warm fire and food house.
He was in an upstairs study on the corner of the second floor. A wall faced the fire house, and another faced the street. Occasionally Greg walked to the front window to look out. He wondered if any other survivors were coming home. He could only make out one shadow in the fire house. Greg decided, because it was dark and cold, no logical person would be out on a night with no moon to guide them back home.
Greg noticed a dozen trash cans lined up on the street in front of the fire house. Large bins that trash trucks grabbed with their mechanical claw. While Greg was staring at the trash cans, wondering why they were there, light appeared on the front lawn. The warm fire and food house’s front door was open. Greg ducked down in the window, peering over the sill. A figure walked from the porch to one of the trash cans with a small plastic bag. The figure opened the can, threw out the bag, and skipped back into the house.
Skipped? It was a girl, a young girl. Greg was not a good judge of girl ages, but since she was alive and working with fire, he bet she was at least 12 or 13.
Greg knew instantly he was going to approach the survivor. His next decision was how and when to approach her. Did he want to wait a day, come up in the daylight so she was not scared? Did he want to go over tonight so he could be warm next to the fire and eat the food he smelled cooking? He was so excited to find another person, and to find another person close to his age, he decided not to wait.
He grabbed his pack, walked down the stairs, walked out the door, and slowly approached the front of the other house. He did not want to scare the girl, and being direct was his best approach. She was probably just as alone and desperate for company as he was.
“Should I knock?” he asked himself. “Should I just open the door and say “hello?” The front door was wood framed with a large glass upper half. There was a storm door with a sign reading Model House – Rutledge.
“This isn’t even the girl’s house, she’s squatting.” Greg noticed. He wondered where she lived before moving into this house.
“Here we go.” Greg muttered to himself. He raised his hand and knocked politely but firmly.
The girl was on a couch reading a book next to the fire. Her head popped over the back of the couch and looked at the door. Greg wore a big grin, waving slowly. He spoke in a loud voice, making sure she could hear him through the glass doors “My name is Greg. Can I come in? I’m 14 and alone. I just want to say hello and warm up by your fire.”
The girl jumped up and ran to the door with a huge smile on her face. “Oh my god! A cute boy’s here to rescue me!” She screamed through the other side of the door.
“A cute boy?” Greg thought to himself. The first person I run into in months is a teeny bopper?
The girl hesitated for a second. “You’re alone, right? You’re not with the army or anyone else?”
Greg shook his head. “At least she is a smart teeny bopper.” He thought.
The girl turned the deadbolt and let Greg inside the house. She threw her arms around him and hugged him for a few seconds. “Oh my god! Oh my god! You’re real, and you’re another person! And,” She paused. “You’re all wet.” She stopped hugging him, pulled back and hit him with a barrage of questions.
“What’s your name? Where did you come from? I can’t believe you found me. I haven’t seen anyone for 7 weeks, since the army truck with like four people in yellow suits drove through town really fast. Have you seen anyone? Is there anyone else alive? Is the world going on somewhere? Oh my god, my name is Rebecca. What’s your name? I already asked you that, and you already told me your name is Greg, sorry. Okay, I’ll be quiet now.” Rebecca was a out of breath from the excitement and asking so many questions.
Greg stood in the doorway and felt the warmth of the house in front of him. The cold air was still on his back. He let the questions come. “Hi Rebecca, my name is Greg, Greg Dixon. May I come in and sit by the fire. Maybe heat some of my food?” Greg lied about having food in hopes of eating some of hers, or because he was too tired to remember he did not have any. “I’ll tell you everything I know, I swear. I am just as excited to meet you. I haven’t seen anyone, and I mean anyone, in months.”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” She replied excitedly. “I can make you some soup. That’s pretty much what I have, lots of cans of soup. My parents ran the local grocery store, and they held the last two shipments of soup in the basement. I have just about any kind of soup you want.”
“Do you have the one with little hamburgers in it?” Greg loved that soup, but would eat anything she had. She could warm a bowl of water, and he would drink it just to heat his insides.
“I do. Let me get it.” She moved aside to let Greg into the house. “Come in. Put your stuff anywhere you want, and sit by the fire.” Rebecca bounded through the living room ahead of him. She opened a cupboard next to the fireplace and pulled out a can with a red label. She pulled the tab off of the top and poured the soup into a metal pot, more a cauldron, with a wire handle. She hung the pot on a metal rod with a hook and swung it over the fire. “I looked at a house with a woodstove, but there were people upstairs, you know, not alive, so I decided I could work with a fireplace instead. My dad loved the store that sells all this fireplace cooking stuff. I make it work. Oh my god I’m so lonely. I’m sorry I’m talking so much.”
Greg warmed his hands, letting heat flow through his freezing body. He sat down and took off his coat and boots. Rebecca continued with questions. She rambled about herself. She even started crying at one point. Greg waited for the soup and listened. He gave yes or no responses when prompted. He knew the girl wanted to talk to someone more than she cared about his answers.
Greg was almost in shock. He was hungry, dehydrated, and exhausted. He was not capable of giving more than the one word responses he offered.
When the soup was hot, Rebecca used an oven mitt to grab the pot handle and pour it into a paper bowl. She gave Greg a plastic spoon, and sat quietly, waiting for Greg to eat, and more importantly, to answer her questions.
“I walked from Boston, well Hightower.” He began. “I’m headed further north to Hanover. My family is meeting me there, probably not until the spring, but maybe this fall. I don’t know which, but I know I have to get up there.” Greg explained as his warm, full belly brought energy back into his body.
“You walked here from Boston? Wow, that’s pretty far. Even if we had a car it would take yo
u over an hour to get to Hanover, and you want to walk? I went to volleyball camp in Hanover last summer.” Rebecca stopped talking. “Wait, you think your family is up there? Your family is alive?”
Greg nodded. He explained the phone call with his father. He told her that his father, brothers, uncles, and cousins were not getting sick, and they decided to meet in Hanover. He told her one of his uncles was in Raleigh when everything began, and was still alive after a few months.
“My parents died about two months ago, just like everyone else in town. Concord and Manchester died early for New England. My parents said it was because half the town worked at the airport and caught it early, but I don’t know. I think the whole country died at about the same time.” Rebecca was not as frenetic in her conversation. She was serious and sad when she spoke of her parents.
“How did you end up here? How did you survive on your own for so long?” Greg was curious because Rebecca was young.
“I’m 13 years old. I’m not a baby. Once I realized I was going to survive, I made some rules, made some decisions, stuck to a plan my parents wrote for me. You know, most of the kids died first, I think because we’re younger and still growing, or because we’re smaller, but whatever. It was weird that I didn’t get sick like everyone else at my school. My parents kept me home, told people I was sick, and held back canned food for me. Right at the beginning, when Raleigh happened, they started hoarding the food, mostly for the town and survivors, and then specifically for me. You know, people could tell they were sick. They weren’t hungry, had to force themselves to eat. They just got wiped out. My parents knew, probably a week before they caught fevers.” She paused, wiping away a tear. “It feels good to talk about it, you know, to talk to someone.”
