Survial Kit Series (Book 1): Survival Kit's Apocalypse

by Williams, Beverly

  I gathered up a bunch of river-worn pebbles and sat next to Thom, placing the pebbles in front of him in the form of a question mark.

  He watched, then looked away, gazing off to the rock sculpture I’d left. In time the wind shifted, flowing through the rocks and over the bottles’ mouths and across the water to us. Thom tilted his head, listening to the arrangement sing. He gathered the pebbles, formed a target with them, and finished with a feather protruding from the center of the bull’s-eye area.

  We continued our pebble conversation for a bit.

  When Thom finally did speak, I startled. “Your name used to be Ally.”

  “Used to be.”

  A large branch floated along the water. It caught on a rock, waving around for several minutes before becoming dislodged. We watched it float away, down around the bend.

  “Not Allison?”

  “Nope, just Ally,” I told him.

  “Ally.” He said the name pensively to himself.

  I could see something was tugging at his mind but still hiding from consciousness.

  Thom stood and helped me up. I followed him to the shack and he pulled out his guitar and removed the capo, smiling. He played “In the Aeroplane over the Sea” by Neutral Milk Hotel, but I just listened, curled up on my side on the table.

  “I want my own name for you,” Thom said while he fiddled with the guitar’s tuning keys, not looking up. “My brothers are always playing with peoples’ names, nicknaming them. I haven’t been inclined to. Not with anyone else.”

  He reached over to the blue velvet. I watched his hand, hovering in the air in front of the recliner, writing. “I want to call you this. When we’re alone?”

  In the nap of the velvet, he’d left a name I’d never seen or heard. I thought of the way it would sound (it rhymed with “faith”) and I considered what it meant—what its meaning would be if it had ever been put in one of those name dictionary books.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  He swiped across the velvet, and the name disappeared. Then he spoke my new name that was only his to speak and only mine to hear. It sounded delicate and beautiful on his tongue.

  “Nap?” Thom asked, and I consented. We lay down on the little couch with my back to him and his arms slung around me so I wouldn’t fall off. I turned over to face him. We didn’t fit on the loveseat any better this way. He kissed my cheek, then I tucked my head comfortably under his and tangled my body with him so we fit better on the cushions. We fell asleep with our limbs wrapped up like a root-bound plant.

  When we woke up from our nap, it was time to head to the lake to help with supper. There were a few rotters outside the shack’s door, but Thom sprayed them with a vinegar bottle we kept on a hook there, and he had them down and pulled away from the structure before I’d even finished putting my boots on.

  “I would’ve helped with those,” I said, feeling guilty and lazy and still a bit groggy. I’d slept hard for a couple of hours.

  “I know.” Thom locked the shack. We strolled out to find Eric and Matthew.

  At supper, I sat with Eric and watched the activity around the lake. Jeff and his family and a few others joined us. I tried to be social, but my mind wandered too much to pay attention to what people were saying. I gave up on the small talk and leaned against Eric, pretending to sleep.

  I loved being in Eric’s arms now. I thought back to a time when I could barely bear it, when I’d struggled to stay still beneath his touches. He’d saved me so many ways, so many times now. I loved him in spite of that. I loved him for his strength and patience. I loved him for protecting the people he cared about. I loved him for all the work he put into life each day. I loved him for seeing something in me and for reaching out, over and over. For teaching me how to reach out, too. I kept listing the reasons and ways I loved him.

  “Come on, sleepyhead.” Eric shook my shoulder gently. He kissed my head. “Wife.” He knew I wasn’t really sleeping, that I was enjoying listening and not participating. Soon, everyone else had gotten up to clear away their supper messes and prepare for bed.

  I crawled onto Eric, into his lap, facing him. I wrapped my legs around his body. He gave me one of those Cheshire Cat smiles and supported my back with his hands.

  “Exhibitionists!” Matthew teased as he grabbed up our plates. He kicked Eric’s leg and walked away.

  We ignored everything else and focused on making out for a bit. I was fully awake.

  Thom sat with me on the cliff after supper, watching as the sun set and the world’s colors changed and darkened.

  Under the full moon, we saw a moose at the other side of the lake, then a couple of little ones behind her. She led her two babies into the water, along its edge, and then back to the woods again.

  I shredded a fern, hoping that dissecting something I could understand would make me feel less perplexed. I tore the pinna leaflets from the fern’s long axis, leaving several strings of the axis attached to the stalk. Then I pulled the smaller pinnule leaves from the pinnae, piling them in front of me.

  Eric called up the hill, “Thom! Come hither!”

  Thom stood. He turned to leave, then paused to speak.

  “He loves you.”

  approached Sam with an idea. “We could construct something that will last longer.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Building rock walls was becoming a lost art long before After arrived.”

  Sam looked intrigued. “Ooh! Are they hard to make?”

  “Not hard to build, but building them is a lot of hard work. If that makes sense.”

  “I’m not afraid of work,” she asserted.

  “Want to make one?”

  “Definitely.”

  I’d never made a rock wall either. The cairn Renee and I had made was a far cry from a rock wall. Sam and I had ideas about them, so we talked these through while gathering stones in one of the camp’s wheelbarrows. One that had never been used for the outhouse pits.

  “We need to place the rocks carefully. We want them to fit together correctly,” she commented. “And we need to take our time, not rush to get it done.”

  “We should also make sure to build it so that when it falls, it doesn’t fall to the sides.” She looked a little confused when I said this, so I continued, “If we make it so it’s going to fall inward, toward its center, then instability and time might work together to make it stronger.”

  “Oh! I see what you mean!”

  We discussed how to build it in a way we thought would make that happen.

  Renee had told me, back on the mountain, about a rock wall Andy Goldsworthy had created. I’d never seen pictures of the one she described, but the mental image I’d drawn from her words was one I could finally create and see here with SammyJo.

  We set out small stones to determine the trail our little rock wall would follow. It started near a stream, winding away from the water, meandering in and out through the trees. Choosing the path for our wall was harder than it sounds. Getting it right was of extreme importance to us. When we had the outline finally formed, it looked like a widening piece of ribbon candy rippling away from the water’s edge and into the forest.

  “Yes?” I asked SammyJo.

  “Oh, yes!”

  I left a note in the lean-to every day Sam and I worked on our wall. The same one each day, on top of my blanket: No Tracking Me Today.

  The first evening after working on the rock wall, Sammy and I entered the lean-to site to find that the guys had built a fire pit. Sam had supper on the deck with us, and then we all watched the fire and listened to it as it crackled and snapped.

  Matthew agreed to be our Designated Driver, and Thom distributed some of those hallucinogenic pills to Sam and Eric and me. Thom doled out a few for himself, too. We downed them immediately, then cleaned up the area for the evening.

  “Present!” Matthew announced, looking from Sam and me over to Eric.

  “Oh! Check this out!” Eric said. “We found co
pper chloride at the school.”

  Thom commented, “This is going to be awesome.”

  Sammy and I waited, bewildered, as Eric retrieved some paper containers from the lean-to’s side. The guys placed them in our fire and then sat around it. After a few seconds, the fire turned a brilliant green.

  Sam sat down next to Matthew.

  Eric appeared to be hypnotized by the blazing green flames. Thom was mesmerized by the fire too, but he was also watching me. It froze me for a minute, as I was hit with the strength of my love for them. I stood there, studying them for a long moment. I moved closer to them real slowly. Something had been holding me back, but now I felt that something falling away, and I let go of it. I squeezed between Eric and Thom and watched the fire with them. I looked from Sam to Matthew to Eric to Thom. I could see them clearly—not just with my eyes. I saw through to the cores of who they were. Several different kinds of light and love welled up from inside us, and I was breathless with awe.

  SammyJo breathed out in amazement. “You weren’t kidding about the Universe,” she said to me.

  We stared into the fire. We talked and watched the green flames as they turned yellow-blue, then orange, then died out, until only embers glowed in the dark.

  “I’ll walk you home, Sam,” Matthew offered when we all started taking turns yawning. Sammy thanked us and Matthew escorted her to her tent.

  The next day was a rough one. Sam and I tried to work too fast and it set us back. It made us slower. Worse, it made us ache even more. We agreed to admit defeat early in the morning, and planned to greet the next day’s section of our project with enthusiasm.

  I attended to my Doody Duty, got hauled into the Tar Pit, and spent the rest of my afternoon and evening staring into a fire, trying to reclaim the feelings I’d had next to it the night before.

  The guys gave me space, but each checked in with me from time to time. Matthew stopped by and hugged me and wished me “whatever it is you need right now.” Eric and Thom spent more time with me, but with fewer words. As the fire burned itself out, Eric pulled me into the lean-to and tucked me into bed.

  I had a terrible night. Bad dreams I couldn’t shake off, bad feelings I couldn’t shrug away from. Early in the morning I slipped from bed and into my Princess Palace (I know…) and secured each lock.

  The flashlight had been moved. It was in the door’s corner pocket of alcohol wipes, poking against my foot. I realized this was a hint from Thom. He’d left a folded strip of cardstock attached to the flashlight by a rubber band. He wanted me to charge a glow-in-the-dark message on the paper. I turned the bright light on and let it shine over the bit of paper while I kept my eyes clamped shut. I considered what it must’ve looked like from outside the P.P., inside the dark lean-to. Was Pandora’s Box shining with light from within and readying to spill forth its evils upon my family? Must I always be such a pessimist?

  I was afraid to learn whatever I would be learning. Petrified. Thom could wreck me. That thought clutched me in spite of everything we’d been through together. I knew better than to think Thom would intentionally hurt me, especially here in this safe place. Still, this kind of thinking was left over from my nightmares, and I couldn’t beat it down.

  Tiny flashes of light streaked through the red curtains of my eyelids. My index finger stroked a piece of impossibly soft crushed velvet. I wanted to kick myself. Don’t be a wimp, Kit. I shut off the light, slowly opened my eyes, and absorbed Thom’s dazzling words. There glowed a declaration of his feelings, amplified by his name for me:

  O Magnum Mysterium! Te adoro, Athe.

  I dreamed about Him…

  he rock wall took more time than we expected, even though it wasn’t a very long or tall one. Hauling the rocks in was grueling, even with the wheelbarrow, and even though we were able to get most of what we needed from the stream’s edges. Choosing the right pieces and placing them the correct way in the proper spots was difficult as well. Still, we found the work enjoyable.

  Sometimes we talked while we worked. Sometimes we sang or hummed. When we were very tired, we worked in silence.

  Early one morning, I told Sam about a rock wall the farmer had described to me. It was commissioned by some rich guy and stretched three miles long. Took three years to build. After it was completed, the rich guy paid someone to scrub and bleach the moss and lichen from the rocks. Once this was done, the rich guy changed his mind, wanting the moss and lichen back. But nothing would grow after the rocks had been treated like that.

  “Serves him right,” Sam remarked.

  After a few minutes, she spoke again. “The day Buck cut you?”

  “Mm-hm?” I turned a rock over, fitting the piece into a groove that seemed made for it.

  “That was my catalyst. For getting ready to leave him.”

  She frowned at the way a rock wasn’t cooperating with her. I held out another, and we swapped.

  “Took me long enough, huh?” she asked.

  “I’m just glad you got there.”

  She wiggled her chunk of rock, and it settled into place. Its edges precisely matched up to the surrounding rocks like they were puzzle pieces.

  A couple of rotters staggered into our work area, one from either side. Sammy and I each ended one. We hauled them away and went back to work.

  The farmer and I always had experiments going as part of my education. One I thought about a lot after the vinegar discovery was “What happens to bones in vinegar?” It was a pretty gross experiment. The end product’s stench made us both feel like retching, but the results were interesting. After chicken bones had been left in vinegar for a few days, they became rubbery. They could be bent back across themselves. They could be twisted and shaped, but they were like memory springs—as soon as they were released from the pressure that held their unusual positions, they’d bounce back to their normal shapes. The vinegar’s acetic acid had leached the calcium from those bones.

  Maybe the rotters’ avoidance of vinegar was a defense mechanism to keep them mobile. Couldn’t go around after food if your bones were made of rubber. Eventually, we found that even though vinegar is a diluted acid, it’s enough to change the rotters’ bone structures quickly, within a few minutes. Yet again, this discovery was an accident.

  “Look at that!” Thom said after killing a rotter who’d been sprayed. He pushed a stick at the rotter’s skull where it had been squirted, and the bone gave way like a ball that doesn’t have quite enough air in it. When he let up, the bone sprang back into its original shape. It gave me another idea.

  The next rotter we found, I tied up. Thom looked at me funny, but didn’t ask. I sprayed the rotter’s head, and after talking with Thom for a few minutes about the farmer’s experiments (to give the vinegar time to seep in), I stuck out my finger and jabbed it at the back of the living dead thing’s skull. The skull caved in and bounced out, and the rotter de-animated. That’s all it took to kill the thing off—it didn’t even require an actual weapon. And that quickly, the rotters had a new weakness, and we had a new way of protecting ourselves.

  “There you are!” Matthew said.

  I’d been sitting on the deck, drawing, all morning.

  “Hey,” I replied.

  He walked up and gave me a quick squeeze, his arms around my upper arms. He picked up the picture I’d been working on, of Eric, leaning against a tree. It had taken hours to get the muscles in his arms just right.

  “Looks exactly like him!” Matthew said at the picture.

  “Do you draw?”

  “Nah. Always wanted to be able to, but…” He looked at his hands. “These aren’t drawing hands.”

  “Wanna scout?”

  “I was just about to ask whether you wanted to.”

  I slipped my backpack on and bumped his fist with mine.

  We took a trail that went well past the shack and out to a road, with Matthew walking fast. I had to trot to keep up.

  “Got my motorcycle up there now,” he said, pointing to a shed. “
There’s a warehouse area in a town up the road a bit. I’ve been there before, but not into the warehouses. Kinda thought it would be good to have a bit of backup. Wanna?”

  “Yep!”

  We rode out to what was once a sleepy little village and left the motorcycle at its edge, opting to walk through the town so we could talk while doing a bit of scavenging. Most of the local rotters had already been put down.

  “The warehouses are up the road,” Matthew told me. “And a factory’s a bit farther on. Just about everyone who lived here worked there.”

  “What did they make?”

  Matthew shrugged. “Chemicals?”

  I perked up at this. “What kind?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Farm stuff. Agricultural.”

  I stopped walking. My heart thumped hard in my chest.

  Matthew stopped about thirty feet ahead of me.

  “I don’t want to hope,” I told him.

  He looked back my way. “I don’t know if there’s anything for Plan C, but that’s why I brought you here. If we’re going to catch a rotter swarm, we’ll need to eliminate them somehow.”

  “We’ll find out in a bit.” I broke into a run in the direction of the warehouses. There were several of them, lined up like seats in a movie theater.

  Matthew pulled a rotter out of the security booth and stabbed it through the temple, dropping the body at the side of the road. I ran into the booth while he cleaned off his knife.

  “What are we looking for here?” he asked.

  I pulled a diagram of the property from the bulletin board and studied it. “You quite possibly found what we need for Plan C!” I stabbed my finger at a building on the diagram. “There!”

  I tacked the diagram back up and we ran for the building. Matthew broke the lock off the door and pulled it open carefully. I waited behind him with my phoenix knife in my right hand and a flashlight in the left.