The light was fading from the day as he found a small shop, the glass covered by steel panels. The panels were dented, even punctured in a few places by something he assumed had been heavy and sharp, possibly an ax, but they had held. He rolled a cigarette and stood, one boot heel resting against the brick wall behind him, the other holding his weight on the cracked concrete. He watched Beth as she walked toward him.
She smiled. “Roll one for me?”
Billy rolled one and handed it to her. She fished a lighter from her own pocket and lit it.
“We have to settle in for the night... Too dark to keep on. Who knows what sort of freaks are waiting for night to make a move on us.”
Billy nodded. “Dozens... No doubt...” He sighed. “We'll need a place for all of us.” He tapped his free hand against the brick. “Place looks untouched, it will take a little work to get in, but we could spend the night here.”
Beth inhaled deeply and let the smoke roll slowly out of her mouth. She turned the cigarette around and looked at it. “Killing me, I know it, and I couldn't care less. Tastes so fucking good and calms down that itch in my brain.”
Billy laughed. “I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter what we do know. I think the life expectancy of the human race just dropped a whole shit load.”
Beth laughed along with him, took another hard pull on the cigarette, looked at it once more and dropped it to the pavement. She ground it out with her boot heel. She raised her eyes to Billy and the laughter was gone, ground out like the cigarette. He knew the next words she spoke would be serious, but he wasn’t prepared for them when they came a few moments later. “It's just you and me.” She frowned as she finished.
“What?”
“What? Come on, Billy, what did you think she was gonna do? You knew this was a problem... Scotty ran you down after you walked away... It took very little to turn them around... They're heading south... Lynwood Park, I think. Scotty thinks there are safe places there and more people too.”
“And? … What did you say?”
Beth shrugged. “I said go... If you fall apart after a little tough walking we don't need you...”
“Jamie?”
Beth laughed, but the laugh didn't touch her eyes: Instead they narrowed, hurt. “Called me a cunt. Told me I could have you.”
“Wow... Right to the C word... Must have been pissed...” Billy straightened from the wall. “But you stayed with me.”
“Yeah... About that.... Nothing's changed, Billy. I don't want us to get off on the wrong foot. I like you... I even like you a great deal, but you're not the guy for me... I don't know where that guy is. Even if I let you be the guy you couldn't handle me, Billy.”
She had shifted her rifle from her shoulder, she stepped forward now and rested the barrel end against the fat padlock that held the steel shutters on one side. “Better move off a little further,” Beth told him. “I have no idea how this is gonna go.”
The noise was deafening in the quiet late afternoon. A flock of pigeons startled from a nearby rooftop, lifted into the air. Billy followed them with his eyes as they lifted into the gloom. Suddenly a larger shadow appeared above the pigeons and a split second later a much larger bird dropped into the flock, talons extended, and emerged with a pigeon clasped in those same talons. The bird wheeled, climbing an air current and then began to drop to a nearby roof where it apparently had a nest.
“Jesus,” Billy breathed.
Beth chuckled. “Hawk,” she turned her eyes back to the padlock. “Come on, Billy. Let's get down for the night.” She reached down and carefully pulled the jagged metal from the eye holes where it had rested in the bottom of the steel frame. Together they lifted the shutters.
Oswego NY: Mike and Candace
Early Afternoon
Once they were back on the main road again, it was late afternoon, and by the time they finally reached the other side of Oswego, they had all agreed to stop for the day.
As they entered the small town of Martville, and pulled into a large field, Mike found himself wondering more and more what the kiss had meant.
They made a half-way decent meal out of the canned goods they carried with them, and once they tired of rehashing the day’s events, one by one they went off to find a place to sleep. They had sleeping bags, and rather than set up the tents they had also brought with them, they all agreed they would rather use the bags.
Mike watched as Terry walked off in one direction with Gina. Obviously something had sparked with those two, he thought. He sat talking quietly with Bob and John, as well as Candace. When he finally said his goodnights, a few hours later, Candace got up, and saying goodnight, walked away by herself.
While Mike waited for sleep to come, he found that instead of thinking of all the bad things that had happened, he was thinking of Candace, and all the good things that could happen.
New York: Old Towne: Conner and Katie
Things have been really crazy the last few days. I’m not alone anymore. It’s funny because that’s the last thing I wrote in this journal, and two days later it’s like an answer to prayer. It happened later on the evening of the tenth. Oh, and it was the tenth, Katie and Jake have old fashioned wind up watches, so does James, and they’ve kept track: Kept them wound up too.
In another way it isn’t the twelfth today at all because the days and nights, or the rotation of the Earth that makes the days and nights, isn’t the same at all. It’s much slower. James and Katie have kept track. It’s taking about twenty-eight hours to cycle through, but last week, it was up to almost thirty six hours. And none of us knows why, except it slowed up and it’s now starting to get back to a normal length of time to cycle through a night and day. So it’s not really the twelfth, and they’ve just been keeping track of the days as they pass, same as I’ve been; except for the day I thought I’d lost.
Anyway, as usual, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start from start: I was organizing stuff. There is a warehouse down closer to the river full of wooden pallets. I went down there a few days ago, box, upon box, upon box. I have no idea what’s in them. I figured sometime I’d just open a few up and see. Maybe it would be something useful, maybe not. What’s useful now is radically different from what used to be useful.
Anyway I noticed all the pallets. Pallets everywhere. Some full, some piled high with stuff, but a lot of empty ones; so I went back down with the sled and made a few trips back and forth to the factory so I could stack the canned stuff on them, so they’re not sitting on the floor. I was putting them in the back of the factory in an old storage area. I was so wrapped up in stacking the canned goods that I never even heard them until Katie cleared her throat, I guess to get my attention.
It scared me bad. I thought about the gun I had never bothered to go and get, and a lot of other bad stuff. It went through my mind so fast. The first thing in my head was, the wolves got me! They sneaked up on me! Stupid, I know. I knew it was a person, but my head still insisted wolf. It didn’t last though, and my reaction scared them too. Lydia said I had a can of peas in my hand, and she was sure I was going to bean Katie in the head with them. For some reason she found it funny that I would bean someone in the head with a can of peas, and she giggled. I just felt embarrassed, and glad I didn’t throw the can. I set it down on the stack and took a few deep breaths instead. We all ended up laughing our asses off. Nervous energy. Release, I guess, or something like that. And then we all began to talk at once.
They had known about me for two days. They had seen that someone was going in and out of the market. They were going out to one on the north side of Old Towne, the other side of the river from where I was. For some reason I hadn’t thought to cross the river. They had already been on the other side to begin with, and even though the main bridges seemed too damaged to be trusted, the railroad trestles seemed solid and unharmed to them, so they crossed over one to get to my side. I was impressed; those are open trestles, a long way down to the water.
Because the snow on
the asphalt was melting, they couldn’t figure out where I was going when I left the market. They were actually going back across the river when Katie happened to look over her shoulder toward the opposite bank, and she just happened to catch me going into the factory. She had thought to yell, but over the sound of the rapids, she couldn’t get anyone around her to hear her, let alone me.
Once they were across, she talked to Jake; Jake pretty much was their leader (I don’t know if I like that. Do we need leaders?), and they decided to come back the next day (which was two days ago) and see if they could find me. They didn’t know about the factory. Katie had thought I was just climbing the rock above the river. They searched along the back of the Public Square, or what’s left of it, and down towards Coffeen Street. If they had come back down one more road towards the river, they would’ve found the factory then. Maybe they hadn’t realized there was a road there at all; so they just followed the path of the river, thinking I was living in one of the fallen down buildings along the banks.
They had seen me from quite a way off, crossing the square as they were heading back. It looked to them like I was heading for the north side, maybe crossing one of the bridges, but by the time they got there I was gone. They even began to wonder if I had seen them and hidden on purpose, maybe out of fear. They had searched for a while and then, just when they had been about to quit for the day, James realized that he could smell smoke. As soon as he said it, everyone else realized they had smelled it all along. It didn’t take long after that to find the factory. They just followed the smell of smoke down to the lower road and found it.
So that was that, and now we are six. Jake, Jake Light, he was their leader as I said. He’s an older guy, in his late thirties. Used to be a truck driver.
Katie Lee (Don’t call her Honey. I don’t know why, except she made a point of saying that.). She’s nineteen. I thought she was with Jake. I think Jake thought so as well.
James and Jan Adams. James is a little older than Jan, in his fifties, and he said he is a mechanic. Jan does, did, data processing.
And Lydia. Her real name is Marcia George. Lydia is her middle name. She said she always liked Lydia better. She was still in school, local college. I guess she's the same age as Katie, nineteen.
And last but not least, me.
We spent all of yesterday getting their stuff from across the river and bringing it over to the factory. I thought that was weird. Why go get stuff anyway? You can have anything you want. It’s all free, but in another way I guess I understand. We’ve lost everything. We want to hang on to what little we still do have. We’re all going to stay here. And we talked about what’s next, and what we know about what happened.
I said I had been kind of planning to leave once spring came. Head south or west, somewhere where I wouldn’t have to worry about winter. Jake said it may be that, where it would normally have been warmer, it won’t be anymore. He said it depends on what happened. None of us really know. He thinks it might be smarter to stay here. We could stock up this factory. We could even hunt. He said he’s sure there are deer around. James agreed with him, at least on there being deer around.
I told them about the footprints by my house. They said they had seen footprints as well. They had gone out Coffeen Street and saw tracks of three or four people going in and out of a small store there. They had called out, but no one had answered. They had had second thoughts about calling out too. They weren’t armed. What if someone shot at them?
That brought my original thoughts to mind about a weapon. I mentioned the sporting goods store, and we all agreed to make a trip out there soon.
We talked about cars and trucks and agreed it would be good to get an SUV or truck of some kind if we could find one that will run, as they might be the only vehicles that could drive around as bad as things are torn up. They have also tried starting a few vehicles with no success. I mentioned my electronic brain idea, and Jake said he had thought of the same thing. Turns out he’s also a mechanic. I guess I can see why they chose him to lead. I feel kind of useless around the guy though. We agreed to try finding an older vehicle. Jake thinks our chances of getting one running are good. We’ll see what we can find.
The first night together was good. The best I’ve slept since this thing started. Just not being alone, you know?
I guess I’ll end on that note...
Conner closed his notebook and stuffed it down into his pack. Looking around the factory floor, he was surprised how different a few more warm bodies could make it. It didn’t seem as cold, so oppressively quiet, so echo filled with any kind of sharp noise, so… so different, but different in a good way.
Katie had been watching from across the factory floor where she had made a little area for herself away from Jake and the others. A clearly defined space of her own. Jake hadn't liked it at all. She hadn’t wanted to interrupt while Conner was writing, but now that he seemed finished she walked over to him.
“This was really nice of you,” she said as she walked up. “We were staying in that old school building. None too stable. Last night was the best sleep I’ve had in a while.”
“Funny,” Conner replied, “I was thinking the same thing. For me it was just having others around. People.”
Katie smiled.
She’s beautiful, Conner thought. He wasn’t normally a fan of tattoos, but she had some sort of tribal stuff that snaked up under her shirt sleeve. Just a hint of ink where her shirt didn’t quite meet the top of her Levi's made him wonder just exactly where the ink ended. She caught his eyes and smiled again.
“Mind?” She asked, gesturing at the ground beside him.
“No, sit down,” Conner smiled. “I have no manners at all. How long does it take to devolve? I guess a little over a week.” He smiled again.
She laughed as she sat down. The silence stretched out for a few seconds, each of them looking around the factory floor as the others talked or settled in for the night. They both spoke at once.
“Sorry,” Katie said and laughed.
“No, really. It’s that devolved thing again. Go ahead.”
She fixed her eyes on him. “I was just wondering what you were planning on doing. I mean, have you thought about leaving? I know you spoke a little about it yesterday when you were talking to Jake, but I could see you weren’t quite ready to fall in with the Jake-ites yet.” She lowered her voice for the last.
Conner looked at her levelly. “Yeah… I guess it does show. I don’t dislike him. I don’t even disagree with what he said. I just… I just don’t know. We don’t click, know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I do.” Katie answered. “It’s the same with me. I can think. I don’t need someone to do it for me.”
“Exactly,” Conner agreed. “But it’s a little more too, like Alpha male shit. This is my tribe. Me chief.” Conner finished in a near whisper.
Katie giggled but quickly clamped a hand over her mouth while nodding her head in agreement.
Conner continued. “I’m not really an Alpha male type of guy, but I’m not a dumb sheep either.”
“Me either,” Katie agreed, her giggles under control. She fixed him with her serious eyes once more. “So what will you do?”
“Probably like I said, like everyone else said, leave, but I don’t see why the south or the west wouldn’t be a good direction to go in. We’ll all see, I guess, as spring comes on, or as…”
“What?” Katie asked.
“Well, as this goes on. It might not be over yet. There might be more changes ahead. The days have slowed down, almost seemed to stop for a while last week when the sun just hung in the sky. Maybe what was supposed to happen happened? Now the sun’s rising in the wrong place in the sky. Did the Earth's spin reverse that fast? Weren’t some people claiming we’d fall off the Earth after the asteroid hit? Something like that?” He took a deep breath.
“I guess I’m just waiting to see how this goes. What happens next? In a few months, not far into spring, I’ll probably leave
. Whatever has happened, is happening, should be over by then,” He smiled. “I guess that was a long drawn out answer.”
“No. Not really,” Katie answered. “I’m in the same place. I’m not sure what happened either, or if it’s all over, but I don’t think I want to live in a factory forever either.” She looked around, “But who knows; maybe it’s come to that?”
Conner shrugged his shoulders. “There are caves that dot the river. At least it hasn't come to that.”
She nodded and then continued. “Anyway, I… I just wanted you to know I’m seeing it the same way as you. I mean… I mean I want to be on your side of it.” She locked her eyes on his and gave a firm nod, then flipped her short, black hair out of her eyes. She firmed her mouth, set her jaw and spoke once more. “I'd like to go get my things... Move over here with you.” Her dark eyes settled on his own. “Be with you... I mean, be together.”
“Quick,” Conner said.
She nodded and smiled, “Maybe it’s a quick world now. I’m taking you at face value, I guess. You don’t have a little harem locked away farther back in this factory, do you?” She smiled.
Conner laughed. “Not hardly.”
“Well then,” she asked quietly, her eyes serious.
Conner nodded, which caused a huge smile to spread across her face. His own smile answered it. But, he thought, did she really mean…? He didn’t complete the thought as she stood and walked across the factory floor to where she had put her things and spent her first night. She turned and looked back at him. Conner stood and walked over to help her move her things over to his area. Several pairs of eyes watched the move.
~
“Guess that settles that,“ James Adams said to his wife Jan.
His wife nodded, a slight smile on her face. For the last few days Jake had been pushing Katie. Jan had disapproved. Let the girl make up her own mind, she had thought.
Earth's Survivors Box Set [Books 1-7] Page 19
