by Ryan Schow
“Just south of a hundred,” he said, half-heartedly.
“How old are you really?” she asked.
“Oh, the ageism crack was you asking me my age?” he said.
“Of course it was ding-a-ling.”
“Too old for you,” he said, never taking his eyes off the sky.
The remark seemed to still her for a moment, but then she said, “You don’t…I mean, I don’t want to be rude, but you didn’t think I…liked you like that, do you?”
Uh, yeah. He did. “Of course I did,” he said.
“Well then maybe I’m throwing off the wrong signals.”
“At least that’s cleared up,” he said. Then, pointing, he said, “If you can name that constellation right up there, I’ll tell you my age.”
Looking at him, serious with that look, she said, “I already know your age.”
“It’s Scorpio,” he said, ignoring the statement and the look. “My sun sign.”
After awhile, he said, “I think I’m going to call it a night. And if I’m lucky, I’ll find my way to my room in the pitch black without falling down the stairs, or ending up lost.”
“I can help with that,” she said, walking him inside. She handed him a candlestick and a lighter and said, “Just get this back to me in the morning.”
“You won’t need it?” he asked.
“It’s for when you have to go to the bathroom. Some guys have buckets they keep in at night, but I think that’s gross, so I just go downstairs and out back when I have to.”
“That’s like nine stories, though,” he said.
“Keeps these legs of mine looking good,” she said, giving her thigh a pat.
He glanced down, then back up into her eyes. “Am I really getting the wrong impression about you, or are you just playing with me?”
“What’s the impression you’re getting?” she asked.
He studied her face as best as he could in the candlelight, then he said, “I’m not emotionally available, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“None of us are until we are,” she said. “Don’t be a square.”
He nodded his head, still holding her eye, and then she cracked the smallest smile and he felt it fracture his iron veneer ever so slightly.
“Good night,” he said.
“That’s it?”
“You want to watch a movie, make some popcorn, cuddle by the fire?” he said, not kindly, but firm enough that he hoped she got the point.
“You don’t have to be rude,” she said.
“I appreciate your…company tonight,” he retorted. “Sorry if I got the wrong idea.”
With that, he left, found his way downstairs, then laid on the bed with Daisy for the better part of an hour. Finally he said, “We’re not staying.”
She gave a low growl, then a whine.
“I get that you feel like that,” he said. “But we shouldn’t be here. With these people. This is their life, their community, and it’s small. Too small.”
Daisy gave him a bit of a nudge, something she’d never done before. It was like she was trying to knock some sense into him.
“These people will expect things out of me I can’t give them.”
Daisy nudged him again, softer this time, then she whined.
“Maybe some people can change,” he said. “You did, I get that, but you’re a dog.”
She gave a low bark.
“Yeah, well I’m not. I’m a person whose head is messed up, whose heart is permanently broken, whose will to live sits squarely on the broad shoulders of a pit bull.”
She whined again, then gave a sharp bark.
“Those people love you,” he said. “I watched you and you couldn’t get enough of them.” Daisy now just stared back at him in the darkness. “Well they’ll love you but they won’t love me. No one likes broken men. It’s like watching the world’s longest tantrum, but with the volume turned off. So I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to sit here day after day trying to be cheered up by strangers while you’re off getting all the love you need.”
Now Daisy growled.
“Stop it!” he snapped. Daisy stopped. “I’m sorry,” he said, feeling her reaction. He reached out to pet her, but she moved away. “I’m sorry.”
He got up; she stayed on the bed.
“We’re leaving,” he said.
She didn’t move.
“Suit yourself,” he replied, grabbing his things and walking out the door. He left it open, but Daisy wasn’t coming. So he started down the hallway, found the door to the stairs and descended them in pitch black darkness. When he got to the ground level, he waited for Daisy to come, but she didn’t.
She no longer needed him.
Great, he thought, walking out the front entrance. He was trying to figure out what to do when the voice in the darkness made him jump about a mile high.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” the female voice said, a slight German accent. He turned and in the moonlight, he saw Claudette, Earl’s sister’s first best friend.
“I think I almost had a heart attack,” he said, uncomfortable talking to this girl who was in short shorts and a tank top.
“I’d ask if you need to use the bathroom,” she said, “but it’s clear you have other plans.”
She crossed her arms over her chest because it was obviously cold. Ben averted his eyes, tried to be polite.
“Do you really have a bathroom down here?” he asked.
“What does it matter?” she asked. When he didn’t say anything, she said, “Everywhere out of the path of travel is a bathroom when you have to go number one.”
“It’ll all build up one day,” he said. “All that pee.”
“The rains will wash it away. But if they don’t, then we’ll just pack up and move. Speaking of moving, where are you off to now?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Deserting your dog and our little merry band of misfortunate souls?”
“You’re nice people.”
“I know who you are,” Claudette said. “America’s best looking President. You know, when I was studying to come to this country, trying to figure out the whole immigration thing, you were running for office. I remember thinking about one day meeting you, because in America, you can do anything. You can get a job, start a family, marry who you want, maybe even be President one day.”
“Did Earl tell you about me?” he asked, feeling betrayed.
“Of course not,” she said. “I’m not blind.”
“Sorry,” he said.
“As a girl new to this country, I had the foolish dream once of meeting you. A real American President. That’s why I moved to Washington D.C.”
“How old were you when you came here?”
“What is age anymore?” she asked. “What are birthdays, or dates? What are holidays or schedules or bed times?”
This was a curious question considering he’d given credence to none of these things since the collapse.
“Do you even know what the date is?” she asked.
“No.”
“The point is, even with your beard and your uncut hair and your dead tired eyes, I’d know you anywhere. If not for you, the machines would have won. But they didn’t. You stopped them.”
“How can you say that?” he said.
“Look around,” she replied. “There are people. Communities. Survivors. All because of you. You set off those EMP’s, right?”
“I did.”
“Well that saved us.”
“I did so under duress, though.”
“Who cares why you did it? The point is, you did, and we’re alive because of you.”
“The machine took a human body, hijacked it, and now this AI creature walks among us, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
She laughed, almost like this was a joke.
“This is a huge country with no communications and no travel but by old cars, boats and motorcycles. What could a machine gain from this world?”
“Immortality?”
“Well we won’t be around to see it.”
“So what are you saying?”
“This is not your world anymore, President Dupree. It’s not for you to control, manage or lead.”
“Don’t call me that,” he said.
“What would you prefer?” she asked. “Ben? Because for who you are, Ben sounds perfectly boring.”
“Well maybe I’m perfectly boring.”
“Of course, you are. Everything you know and used to love is gone. Everything but Daisy. Whom you are leaving behind.”
“You can’t begin to understand,” he started to say, but stopped himself because he didn’t know that for a fact.
“I left three sisters, a mother and a wonderful step-father back in Hamburg. I will never see them again. There will never be a way.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Come inside.”
“I want to be alone.”
“You’ve been alone too long, Ben,” she said, leaning forward and kissing his cheek. “It’s time to try something new.”
He thought she was going to leave, but instead she took his hand and started to walk him back into the large hotel. When he stopped, she turned and looked at him, then gave a nod and said, “I’m tired. You’re tired too, Ben. You need to give yourself a break. You need it for your body and you need it for your mind. Isolation is no place for a man. You, Daisy and your friends are here, so for now, why don’t you make this your world?”
On that, he decided to follow her inside. They walked together up the stairs, and when he got to his floor, she said, “I expect to see you at breakfast tomorrow.”
He nodded in the dark, but she wasn’t there to see it. She’d already started up the last floor. When he went inside the room, he saw Daisy hadn’t moved.
“You’re a little turd,” he said with a jovial voice. “You’d just let me leave wouldn’t you?” She gave a soft bark.
“Traitor.”
He stripped down to his underwear, crawled in bed, then laid there until his eyes fell shut. A few minutes later, there was a light knock at his door, stirring him. He wasn’t in a deep sleep; he was barely even sleeping at all. He was just so tired and his mind was so wiped out, but it wouldn’t stop working. A girl walked into his room, and he couldn’t tell which girl it was.
“Claudette?”
“No,” the voice said. Gisele. “She told me you were leaving.”
“I was.” She got on the bed and he said, “What are you doing?”
“Be quiet,” she replied, crawling under the blankets with him. “I won’t bite. I won’t even tease about biting because I know how to read moods and yours is uncertain.”
“It is.”
“I don’t want to sleep with you,” she said. “I only want to sleep beside you.”
“Are you trying to keep me from leaving? Is that it?”
“No,” she said. “I know you’re going to leave, which is why I want this memory. It will be like sleeping next to my husband again.”
“Do I remind you of him?” he asked.
“No,” she said, putting her finger to his lips. “He was a hundred years younger than you.”
Now he understood, at least he thought he did. All of them were in pain in this world, all of them trying to get a piece of it back in the hope that it will settle them, even for a moment.
She didn’t want him to get the wrong idea because she needed this, and he didn’t have the wrong idea so he actually enjoyed her company, especially listening to her fall asleep. It reminded him of his wife. Of their early life together.
When he woke the next morning, it was with her arms wrapped around him, her head on his chest. He had a long time to think about her like this, about Gisele and what this could mean. He’d been thinking so long about his wife that he never considered the possibility of being with another woman. He wasn’t about to start, but it was nice to know someone other than his dog still held him in decent regard.
Staying here wasn’t final, he eventually decided, and he could pull up the stakes if he needed to. Just bug out and hit the road to wherever. But he could also stay. See what a different life had to offer. See if he somehow fit in.
When she woke up, she yawned and slowly rolled off him. He drew a breath, waited. Stretching, she opened her eyes, blinked back the sleep.
In the midst of all this, the sheet she had pulled around her shoulders slipped down just enough to let Ben know she wasn’t wearing a top. Not looking at him, she sat up, then reached down, grabbed a long t-shirt and pulled it on. He loved how wild her red hair looked. When she stood, he saw for only a brief moment that she was wearing only a pair of underwear.
“Thank you,” she said, slightly over her shoulder.
“Gisele?” he asked.
She turned and looked at him, her eyes sad, her hair a mess.
“Yes?”
“Do you know who I am?”
She looked at him a long time, then she said, “Yes.”
“From the beginning?”
Yawning, she nodded, held his eye.
“Is that why you—”
“People are no longer what they do,” she said. “I didn’t like you as a president. But I like you as Ben.”
“You knew me, but you didn’t like me.”
“Back then.”
“Why?”
“I watched too much TV. Got the wrong idea of you and only got my mind changed when I met these clowns who couldn’t get enough of you way back when.”
“Now that you met me in person…” he said, not finishing the sentence.
“I like you even less,” she said, giving him a soft grin and a wink. “I’ll see you upstairs for breakfast.”
And with that, she was gone.
He rolled on his back, looked out the hotel window to another cloudless blue sky and said to Daisy, “What the hell was that?”
Daisy just sat there on the floor, panting, her mouth curved into a smile.
“You conspiring with them now?” he asked.
She answered with a hearty bark.
“Yeah, I knew it.”
She looked away.
“So do you want to stay?” he asked. Daisy looked back at him, her eyes giving nothing away, tongue out panting even though it wasn’t hot and she had water.
“Well come on now,” he said. “Don’t leave me hanging in suspense.”
She gave a slight bark, then jumped up on the bed and laid down beside him, her paws up on his chest.
“I’m not sure either, but I think it might be worth doing a couple of days, just to see who these people are.”
He looked at her and she looked back at him.
“If you’re okay with this I’m okay with this.”
She gave a little whine, turned her head and gave his arm a soft lick.
“You can’t always expect me to make the decisions you know. You’re just as in charge of things as I am. So what do you say?”
She gave an affirmative bark just as he saw the face and the fan of brilliant red hair in the doorway.
“I thought you left,” he said.
“You always let Daisy decide things for you?” she asked.
“Only the important things.”
“So are you staying with us or not?” she asked.
He looked at her a long time, trying to decide what to do, trying to decide if this would help him, heal him, or in the end be a bad decision. The truth was he had to take a chance. This world was not someplace you could possibly enjoy alone.
Just say it, he told himself.
“Staying,” he finally said.
Giddy, she crossed the room, got on the bed with him and Daisy, then reached out and kissed his cheek.
“By the way,” she said, “when you were President, I thought you were super for an old guy. Still do.”
“So all that non-sense about—?”
“Yeah,” she teased. “I was lying. I’ve always liked you.”<
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“Really?” he asked.
“No,” she said, giggling. “I thought you were a total schlub.”
“So which is it?” he asked, now thoroughly confused.
“Glad you’re sticking around to find out,” she said, jumping off the bed and heading upstairs.
He could still feel the warmth and moisture of her kiss on his cheek and he hadn’t decided if he liked it there or not. But then he thought, maybe this will be okay. Maybe this will be good.
Now he looked at Daisy and she seemed to clear her throat. “Are you going to tell me what the hell that was?”
It was kind of funny, but in that moment not even Daisy knew what to say, and she had something to say about everything.
Chapter Nineteen
It had been days since she’d heard any complaints from the kids. Maria Antoinette made sure they found food (scavenger hunts in homes she cleared), and she made sure to let them know that there was no room for complaining (we will rest when we need it, eat where we can and sleep in a bed or on a couch every night). When they weren’t walking quietly in single-file line, they rehearsed the story of how Maria had saved them and the kids were getting it down.
She didn’t have to discipline anyone more than once, and when she did have to squelch some of the whining, it was with irrevocable consequences.
Like being left behind.
Or shot.
The thing about kids is you only have to put a gun to their head once before the message sticks.
“It’s funny how when everyone stops acting like a bunch of babies, we start having fun and making good time, right?” she said to One.
“Yes, Miss Maria,” One said.
It took two days of walking up the 101 to reach their first problem area. Where 92 to Half Moon Bay met with the 101, they ran into trouble.
“Just be quiet, kids,” she said.
She knew the feelings of fear that pumped through her were real, an indicator of what she was walking in to. Up ahead, there were three cars and five men. They’d spotted Maria and the kids and were now waiting.
She kept her hand near her gun, then said, “All of you are to stay close to me, but not too close. I may need to move.”
“I’m scared,” Two said.
Maria stopped, turned and looked down at Two, a little girl with blonde hair, brown eyes and funny looking ears.
