Earth's Survivors Box Set [Books 1-7]

by Wendell G. Sweet

  I was outside until way after dark looking for firelight on the other side of the river. I didn't see any at all. I don't know that area though. Maybe I wouldn't see a fire over there. Maybe he is being careful. I want to know so much. When will I know it?

  Mexico NY: Mike and Candace

  Early Evening

  Mike had been able to pick up speed once they had left Mexico. The pavement was fairly even, but after the first three or four miles the traffic began to block the highway and they were down to a slow crawl. He could go no faster than ten miles per hour. There were several blind hills, and curves, and there were a lot of abandoned cars and trucks that seemed to be in the least likely places.

  The four wheel drive had come in handy, as several times they had to go over the road and into a field, or someone's yard to get around it. As evening fell they drove partway up the side of a concrete bridge escarpment and set up a camp. They were protected by the trucks, yet high enough to see in all directions.

  NINE

  Old Towne: Conner

  March 10th ? (probably)

  Another long day. More trips back and forth to the market. The days are definitely longer, but so are the nights. I don’t see how that can be, but it is. I have no real way to judge it; it's just a gut feeling. I found several watches by the checkouts. None of them work either, but I know its true. I feel the longer days. I feel the longer nights. That’s all I can say.

  A few days back I became sure that the days were even longer, and that’s changed. They’re not as long as that, but still longer than they used to be.

  I was thinking, who are you? I know that’s kind of dumb, but you’re somebody, right? And you’re reading this, right? How far away is it in time? Place? Do you know who I am, or did you just find this and begin reading it? Have you been through this too? Is it over and explained? For all I know, no one is here to read this. I can’t really believe that though. Man, I really can’t… won’t. It’s the only reason I’m writing this. So that someone, you, will know who I am and that I made it, at least so far. And as I go along, I hope to get some answers. There must be some somewhere. Maybe you have them. Maybe.

  So my name is Conner, Conner Davis. I’m a website designer... Was, I guess. I guess there’s no more internet, right? Hopefully it’ll be back though. I’m twenty-three years old and I live here in Old Towne, have all of my life. Old Towne is one of those sections of the city that you have to live here to know about. New York, I mean. I’m single, and it looks like I might remain single for a while. That’s not funny really. Hopefully I’ll find other people soon. I can’t be the only one left, but if I do, or if I don’t, I’ll have this written record.

  I dragged about fifty sled loads of stuff down here today. The inside of the market is really beginning to smell bad. No, really bad. And I found more bodies also; two today. I’ve been concentrating on canned stuff, trying to make sure I don’t get sick. There is a lot of it, and I have a lot of it here now.

  I heard dogs today and not far away either. And there were paw prints in the supermarket. And something had been at the bodies. The dogs, I suppose. I was kind of leery of going in, but they weren’t there. And had they been, they probably would’ve been as afraid of me as I was of them, but I was also wondering, were they dogs? Wolves? I mean, don’t they sound the same? Leave the same sort of tracks? Maybe not to someone who knows what to look for in the tracks, but to me they look like dog tracks. And the bodies I had found had been partially eaten. Something was eating them. Dogs? Wolves? I didn't know, but I knew I had to be careful.

  That got me thinking about the zoo. Our zoo. Not as big as the one over in the park, but a nice zoo just the same. What happened to all the animals there? So I walked out State Street, but I couldn’t get all the way up to the park entrance. The road’s gone. The whole park area seems to be gone. No trees, just raw earth. I turned back around and came back. I don’t think anything could’ve lived through that, but lions, wolves, bears? There are a few new things to worry about, right? Can a lion survive in the winter? I don’t know, but I walked back from my trip to the park a lot faster than I walked up there.

  But I heard dogs… or wolves. I heard them, and if they lived, other people had to live, right? And a few times now I’ve felt that I was being watched. You know that feeling you get? Well I’ve gotten it a few times in the last few days. And Old Towne is just a close suburb to Manhattan and I can hear plenty from there. Gunshots. Fires seem to be burning everywhere, like all of Manhattan is on fire. I still haven’t seen anyone though. I’ve called out a few times; no one has answered.

  I haven’t seen other footprints, but it’s been a little warmer, and the snow has melted. Not all of it, but a lot of it. And they could also walk where I’ve been walking, in which case I wouldn’t see their tracks, but they should have no trouble finding me. I'm not trying to hide or be careful about the tracks I leave. I don’t know if that’s good or not. I’ve been thinking about that too.

  I’m not much for guns. I’ve never shot a pistol or a rifle or gone hunting, but I’m thinking of walking back out Arsenal Street. There were a few sporting goods stores out there by the interchange. I even took a few things from one of them the other day, but I didn’t think about guns at the time. Maybe I’ll go tomorrow.

  A weird thing did happen today. I was being careful, making sure there were no dogs or wolves, or whatever in the store. Looking around. I was up at the front where the payphones are, there was a time when people used things like payphones. These were still here from that time, and one of them rang. As soon as it did, the other two there rang as well. Only a little jangle. It didn’t last more than a second, but it scared the crap out of me. I thought I was dead right there. For some reason, I thought the wolves had sneaked up on me, come up behind me and were about to get me. Don’t ask me how I got wolves from a ringing phone, but I did.

  I calmed down after a few minutes, and so I walked over and picked up the nearest receiver. Static. Scratchy static. Then it cleared for a second and, it was probably just my nerves, but I could swear I heard someone there. Maybe not heard, I don’t know if I heard anything at all. It was more like I knew someone was there: You know what I mean? Like when you get a crank call and the person doesn’t speak, but you know that they are there anyway? Like that. Exactly like that, but then it went right back to scratchy static, and I felt stupid for even thinking it at all. Who could’ve been there? Who would know I was there? It was just nerves. I know it was.

  After I got everything back to this factory, I organized it. I’ve brought back a lot of stuff. Meat, vegetables, bottled water. I have to work my way over to some other aisles. I need rice, pasta, maybe some instant potatoes. I started on that today. I got part way through the end cap, but the whole roof seems to be resting on that part of the aisle stands, and it’s the same way on the other end. That’s when I found the bodies. It was so bad I couldn’t tell what they had been.

  I thought it might be better to go through the aisle dividers. They are solid steel though, and I can’t see any way through them, short of a set of torches. Maybe I could find a set, but it seems as though it would be easier to start from the checkouts and work my way through the piles of stuff until I hit another aisle. I have no idea what each aisle is though.

  Yeah, I’ve been there about a thousand times, and I can tell you where the beer and chips would be, paper plates, disposable forks and spoons, but that’s about it. I’d hate to spend five hours or more of digging just to reach the toilet paper and sanitary napkins in aisle four. That would be my luck, but there’s nothing to do for it except to do it. Or go find a set of torches, and then learn how to use them.

  I know I need carbohydrates. Canned meat and vegetables are good, but very low carbohydrates. It's funny, but I need fat, something I’m burning heavy and need to replace. I have nearly constant exercise. My pants are hanging off me. Who knew it could be this easy to lose weight?

  I’d also like to find supplements,
a good selection of first aid stuff, vitamins, band aids, disinfectant, things like that. I guess that’s my next bit of time mapped out for me.

  Other things I’m looking for: A wind up watch (Should work right?).

  An old car or truck without an electronic brain (My hope is that if it’s just a simple distributor/spark arrangement with a carburetor, I should be able to get it to work). I think electronics are shot. They don’t work, that’s for sure, but I could be wrong. Maybe they will in time.

  A battery powered T.V.; maybe there will be a station on. I know it’s a long shot. Everything is digital. Do they even make battery powered digital televisions?

  A C.B. radio. That would let me listen to the state, maybe the world. I should be able to reach someone.

  And last I’m going to check every phone I come across… just in case.

  It's early, but I’m tired. I wish I weren’t alone.

  Old Towne: Katie

  March 10th

  It's late at night. What a difference a day makes. Conner is his name.

  We went back today to see if he had been back to the store. I went there first. I hoped to catch him there early, but he wasn't there. Jake dragged his feet. Like he didn't want to go at all. He didn't say that, but it seemed that way to me. I thought about what I had decided yesterday, just going without Jake, but I waited. Maybe things were just getting to me. Jake's been putting more and more pressure on me to be with him. Lydia's turning up the 'I hate you' attitude. Maybe it's just me, or just was me.

  By the time we did get there this morning the snow was melting, and there was no real way to tell if he had been there at all. We went back to the river and began looking along the banks on that side. I couldn't figure where he had gone.

  I backtracked to the market thinking I must have missed him, missed something anyway. On the way back, I saw him crossing the end of the Town Square. I practically screamed out loud, but he didn't hear me, and by the time we got there he was gone.

  The day just started to slide away. I began to think I wouldn't find him at all. It depressed me. It was James who smelled smoke. All we had to do was follow the smoke, and we found him. James found him. How do you follow smoke? I mean the smell of smoke? Have you ever tried? I mean, if I could see it in the air, sure, but I couldn't. James knew how to follow it though.

  I guess there's a lot more that I could say about today, but I'm not going to say it now. I'll say this though, I want him. I want him, and Jake knows it. It's like Jake knew it would turn out this way. Jan knew how I felt, knew how it would be. She told me that today. She said she could see it in me last night. Like this is the way it's supposed to be for me.

  Lydia knows too. She's happy about it. I saw her face when she figured it out. She looked from me to Conner and back. Then she did it again, this puzzled look on her face, and then she smiled, looked at me and nodded. I think she's just biding her time now. I guess I am too.

  Conner Davis. Conner. I think I already wrote his name. I don't know what happens next. How to make it happen. I'm no good at that sort of thing. I've never done it. And my little notebook here, my only friend through all of this, along with Jan, can't help me with that. I can write it here, look at it, but that doesn't realize it.

  I still have my father's gun. That has also been my friend the last few days, but it can't help me either unless I shoot Jake. I guess that's not funny. Jake never liked my gun. It bothered him. Not ladylike? Something like that, I think. Conner wasn't shocked at all except to say he should have already gotten one and didn't. It didn't intimidate him in other words.

  Tomorrow is March eleventh. Ten days of this new life tomorrow. Maybe one I wasn't meant to start. I feel like... I don't know. To be honest, I feel like I'm just a dumb girl pretending to be a woman, a grown up. Does nineteen know everything? No. I don't want to pretend at this. I want to get things right. I don't know what's next, does anybody?

  618 Park Avenue: Seventh floor. 2B

  Tosh's Notebook:

  March 10th: Warming up; days are longer. It feels like spring. It's early March. No way should it be this warm. My watch is working again, no rhyme or reason.

  Tosh stood now, overlooking the city. It seemed that everything had changed in the last few days. Her watch said it was somewhere past midnight, if it could be trusted. It had quit, started again, and she had set it for 9:00 PM at sunset. The days were longer, but she had no idea how much. It should be close, but so many strange things had happened that she wasn't sure it could be trusted. The days seemed longer. What good was a twenty-four hour watch if the days were all screwed up? Longer? And everything else was bad too. Her own life was falling apart, and she couldn't even bring herself to tell Adam about it, or how much it scared her.

  The old woman, Alice, had taken her dog Ge-Boo out yesterday, and she had not come back. Tosh had opened the door a crack as she had been leaving and warned her again about how bad it was outside, but Alice had simply pretended not to see her, or hear her, when she had spoken. She had walked off down the hallway, smartly dressed, Ge-Boo wearing a small, pink sweater, and Tosh had not seen her since.

  Adam had called the elevator back up a few hours later, locked it down, and then jammed it open with a chair from Amanda Bynes' kitchen. It was clear that if Alice was not back, she would not be back. The streets had suddenly been crawling with people. The late afternoon daylight meant absolutely nothing to them at all anymore. An hour or two into the darkness the electricity quit, and the building, most of Manhattan with it, had gone dark. Now this.

  Tosh looked out on the city now. The fires were everywhere. Twice, a few days back, the planes had overflown the city. Adam had been down in the park trying to find out what was going on. She had been alone, jumping at every sound. The planes had swooped low, blue-tinged mist spraying from the open cargo holds: military planes. She had seen them clearly from the seventh floor. Soldiers in gas masks stood in the open bay doorways and directed the thick hoses that sprayed the city. Three men crouched in the open cargo holds of each plane.

  She had slid the glass balcony doors closed, fashioned a rag around her mouth and waited for Adam to come back. He had not been long. They had been able to smell something on the air, a thick, cloying smell that reminded Tosh of old perfume. It had left a nasty taste in their mouths, but it didn't seem to do anything to them other than that. A few hours later, they had ventured back out on the balcony, the rags tossed aside. If it had been something to kill them, it would have already done that, they had both reasoned.

  The city had fallen quiet. That night the gangs had not been out at all. They had thought it was over. Hoped it was over, but the next night they were right back out. Even more numerous than they had been. They only good thing was they seemed to be killing each other faster and faster now. The gun battles went back and forth all night long.

  Tosh stood in the blackest shadows of the balcony and looked out over the city. Whatever it had been, it had not killed them, if that had been what it was supposed to do. The gangs were fewer now, the last few nights had left many dead in the streets. The sun would rise to more scattered bodies sprawled in pools of their own blood. She could see them in the streets below now, even if they couldn't see her. They ran purposefully from doorway to doorway, testing the locks, stopping at every shadow. Investigating. A car here, a doorway there, looking up to catch her eyes watching them, as if they really could see her, letting her know that they knew she was still there. And Adam slept behind her in the bed, unaware of it all. Oblivious to it.

  And there was irony here. Irony, because she was dying. She was dying, and she was sure that they knew it. She was sure that was the reason they kept looking up at her where she stood in the shadows.

  She blinked away tears as she looked out over the night darkened city: the fires that burned, the gangs that prowled the streets. She had popped her last nitro the day before. It had taken the pain in her chest down, but it had not stopped it. Too much excitement. Too much damage from the
drug use that had ravaged her body. She hadn't touched a thing in two years, but it had still killed her, just as she had known it would. It had just taken its time. Twenty-three and a bad heart. It thundered and trip-hammered in her chest. Out of sync. Out of beat. Out of time. And...

  She wondered about that 'and' as she looked out over the burning city. And what? She would awaken in Heaven? She didn't think so, but she didn't know. She stood brooding, feeling the pressure build in her chest as evening came on and the fires continued to burn.

  She couldn't make Adam have to do for her, she decided at last, and there probably wasn't much more time for her. If she intended to go, she should.

  She turned and looked at Adam's outline on the bed. She couldn't chance waking him either to say goodbye. And that hurt too, but it probably wouldn't hurt for long. He would stop her, possibly read her mind. He had done it before; just seemed to know what she was thinking. She turned a few minutes later, walked quietly across Amanda Bynes' plush carpet, eased open the door and stepped out into the hallway.

  The Docks

  Tosh walked along aimlessly. She had slipped from doorway to doorway herself, working her way to the river. A few blocks off the beaten path and the streets were empty, but for the dead that where everywhere. The smell of the river was heavy on the air, and she was following it. She was unsure what she had in mind. The tears continued as she walked. It wasn't fair, she continued to tell herself, but telling herself it wasn't fair didn't do anything for her situation. And here she was wandering around in the night tempting fate.

  But there were no gang members around, or if they were, she couldn't see them, hear them, feel them. She pressed her hand flat against her chest. The pain was worse. Much worse. And she wondered how much more she could take, how much more her body could handle. She stopped and drew several deep breaths, trying to ease the pain that seemed to close on her chest like a fist.