A Survivor’s Tale

Part One

By: Rebecca Reynolds

Rain falls from the sky. Impacting with dirt, dust and ash, the fat droplets kick up smells of wet earth, a heavy drawing on the lungs. Breathing it deeply, I sigh with a sense of longing and allow a single thought to pass through my aged mind.

The world ended.

Turning sad eyes to the brownish grey clouds gathered overhead, I swallowed thickly and allowed memory to flash in my vision for a single moment.

People; running and screaming; fire raging uncontrolled; blood washing the spent street.

I blinked firmly and again stared up at the cleansing storm, feeling the soft drops of water strike my wrinkled, sun-weathered face. I again took deep breaths, trying to keep them steady, but the shakes were threatening to overwhelm me once more. It got pretty bad sometimes, if I truly allowed myself to remember what happened. But I had to. It was the only way. I needed to write it all down, to get it out of my heart. And maybe, just maybe, if I put it on paper, and it survived long enough, it might end up saving the human race from ever facing such disaster again. I doubt it, because people who were ahead, tended to become blind to the dangers around them. They turn inward, and neglect the things around them.

With my heart steadied, and my breathing now controlled, I turned my gaze downward, at the pen I held in my hand. These were no longer created, they were simply around. Many years of scavenging had brought my supplies of average things to a pretty impressive load. When I finally passed, and someone raided my things, they would be considered fairly wealthy. Not in the sense anyone reading this a hundred years ago might have thought, or even in a few hundred if humans return to their former glory. Money does not get you anything these days. In fact, it wasn’t even seen in public for many generations before the world ended, it was simply a fact indicated by numbers in a system that meant you could get this or ‘purchase’ that.

No, my wealth is in the amount of things I have stock-piled, gathered, hoarded you might say. Scavenging has brought me many things, a lot of which I am the only one who even knows what it is, let alone what it does. Books being one example. Not many alive today have the knowledge to read. People were so self-centered they had no time to teach the following generations how to read.

But I catch myself. I’ve gotten side-tracked. My mind grows more feeble with the passing days. Sorting out what is with what was and has gone by seems more a task than once it was. I shall try to keep on course while I recount the events that transpired and the years that have followed in my journey to where I sit now on a folding chair I’ve dragged out into this unprotected clearing in a pile of weed overgrown rubble. From the notes I have saved throughout these ragged years, I hope to jog my memory enough to give a proper and full accounting of the last seven decades since the Fall of Society.

Then

At the age of fourteen, I was arrogant, hot-headed, and entirely self-absorbed. I believed, as most of society was inclined to, that there were no problems in the world that the ever elusive ‘someone else’ would not solve for me. My only responsibilities were to be a teenager, have fun, and fully expect that my mistakes and messes would be cleaned up in due time by others. The world around me was a fact of life, and I accepted it how it was. Rich businesses had some sparse green grass, shrubs, even a few trees for the very rich. Water was sold according to quality, on top of quantity. Asia Bank owned the world financial system, while Russia was the only place capable of producing agriculture. China pumped out all the synthetic products (food, clothing, furniture, construction materials, electronics, etc.), while Japan sold the things that were real that Russia did not grow.

After World War Three, back in the year 2450, the world’s population had dropped to 4 Billion, down from 8.6 billion. In the year 2684, a terrible plague broke out with no known origin, wiping out an entire fifth of the people who had reached 5.8 billion in that time. It lasted for about two years, and continued to crop up occasionally. Usually the new outbreaks could be traced to an attempt to clear out or take down a house that had been occupied by a victim of the plague.

I guess the only thing that really bothered me then was that there were so many empty houses standing around. Dark windows and slowly settling frameworks haunted many blocks in our city. A lot of them had been emptied by the plague, but others had been left vacant since the war.

In the last hundred years since the plague had ended (made possible because people were heavily quarantined), things had degenerated a lot. With all those unreachable resources rotting where they stood, things kept getting worse. Houses were held together with salvaged bits from abandoned buildings. No houses were painted anymore, and there was no industry to create more let alone new building materials.

A lot of social functions were carried out via Glass-COM, the latest in electronic gadgets China put out to keep up with the demand for safer interaction. They were a pair of sunglasses-looking optical computers, driven by voice command, which allowed the wearer to use the internet, make phone calls, and watch emergency broadcasts by the GC-World Government Spokesperson. Even school was broadcast on a channel of the Glass-COM network. There was one teacher for each grade of your respective country. For instance, I had the seventh grade teacher for America. I couldn’t have cared less, but I listened to it anyway. Once a week there was a test in whatever subject had been scheduled for that week. There weren’t a whole lot of job opportunities to be had for going to school, but there was always the chance that you might get a job with Asia Bank, or the World Government, or Glass-COM.

After that there was World-Food, the only chain that still survived. It was a delivery service that brought food around to each neighborhood once a week. Each day of the week, they went from a central storage building that received food once a month from the Main headquarters in Washington DC.

Then after that there was Water-Corp., which of course was the water provider for the world. The purer the water was the more expensive it got. My Father gave my mother six ounces of the purest water for their wedding. Apparently it resulted in me, though I tend to try not to really think about that.

Anyway, the world had degenerated to extremes. Different companies had grabbed up uninhabited islands and created ecospheres on them, with all sorts of animals, and plants, and even naturally pure water. It cost a lot to go there, and they didn’t accept water as some businesses did. They took actual money. Or rather, the numbers that represented money in the electronic banking system. And it took a lot of them.

For years, many anti-government groups had been warning the general public that things were going to end. That the attempts to pick up the pieces and move on were going to fail, because the people on top were still too self-motivated to truly solve the problems we faced. And until someone honestly tried to fix the way things were, no one was going to get anywhere else.

And finally one day, they were right. Glass-COM crashed. Asia Bank’s system had been tied into Glass-COM’s internet storages, and all of their information went with it. There was no warning. One minute, me and my family were watching a rerun (no new movies were created, it was all reruns), the next, our screens were blank. Blinking repeatedly, I took my glasses off and turned to see the other members of my family removing their glasses as well. My father’s brows ruffled in curious surprise. My mother let out a soft ‘oh’, and my sister just stared at her frames in dismay. Assuming there might be a problem with the receptor box, my father stepped out to check it out. A minute later he was back to say the box was fine.

Sure that it was just a problem with Glass-COM, we went about our day unsure of what to do while we waited for the net to be back up. As evening came however, we noticed that our electricity was off as well. Lights, oven, heating, air conditioning… Cycle-water was off as well. Water used for everyday usage; showering, laundry, and general household washing, was cycled through a system that filtered it out and sent it back around to the houses still in the system.

Unsure what to do or who to go to, we stayed in our house and stared at the walls. We ate food that did not need to be heated for dinner. Anything that required refrigerating was long since bad, as the fridge had been off too.

Finally, the next day, my father set off to the Glass-COM CSR building in the middle of our city. It was about a six hour walk from home. He came back at a dead run, breath ragged, sweat dipping off his head. He told us that the world had ended. The Glass-COM building had been empty and dark, a single sign hanging in the dust covered window.

Glass-COM Regrets to inform you:

Effective immediately, Glass-COM has been terminated.

We don’t know why, but our systems have crashed.

Our manager has gone to DC to find the answer.

We thank you for your patience as we resolve this issue.

Unfortunately, as a result, all of our customers will be without service.

My mother sank onto one of the backless chairs at our kitchen counter. I didn’t understand what was wrong. My sister knew less. She was four years younger than me.

“So, how long until the internet is back up?” I asked. My father gave me a funky look, and then shook his head. “I don’t know, son. I don’t know.”

And so we waited. For days there was nothing to do. We hadn’t had anything else to do. Books, movies, games, news, even socializing, had all been streamed directly through Glass-COM’s networks. Without this source, there was nothing to do.

Then our food delivery was missed. The trucks never came. Two hundred people were left standing in the delivery field with empty carts, till the sun began to dip and people went home. My father heard from some of the other men who waited with him that Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday had also been missed. The trucks weren’t coming. That meant no more food.

That was something that even I could understand. No more food meant people would starve. Where were they? Had the World-Food Corp forgotten about our little corner of the country? Reports began to come in from drifters that other towns were also without food, cycle-water, and power. And the bigger fright, no Internet. Glass-COM had crashed everywhere.

And then one day, a man went running down the road, yelling for all to hear. “The Glass-COM manager is back! He’s something to say! Meet in the food-court.” As he disappeared down the street, he repeated his message. Donning his shoes, my father told us to stay home while he went out to the food delivery field.

My father was very late getting back, but none of us were asleep. We had started a small fire in the back yard to fend of the darkness, when he returned. Eyes full of barely contained fear, he sat down near the fire and stared into the warm flames. It was a while before he could speak, and then he did so brokenly.

“The manager went to D.C. in his car. It was an electric one, and he’d had it charged and some batteries charged, so he was able to get there in decent time. He says that there were many people coming from all parts of America to get answers. The second day he was there, the American representative for the global Glass-COM network held a meeting, at which he finally told all the Glass-COM station managers what happened.” Swallowing furiously, my father hesitated.

“The world has been running on borrowed power for generations now. After the plague hit, the space program was ended. At which point, all of the satellites in orbit stopped being maintained. Since there were none left who understood the spaceships, let alone anyone with enough money to run them, no one has been up there to service the satellites. Glass-COM bought the rights to the satellites on a lease that extended for one hundred and fifty years, the maximum amount of time that they were expected to run on their own juice. Usage though has drained them considerably, and they have all run out of power now. Even with the solar panels on them, they’ve run out. It would take another month to regain enough power to bring the world back online. But because Asia Bank decided to connect to Glass-COM last year, and the advisors were told to shut up about the problem they could foresee, Glass-COM does not have the money to restart their business.”

My father paused for a moment taking a glance up at the stars in the sky. This was the first any of us had really ever looked at the stars with our own eyes rather than the telescopic views available on the Glass-NET provided through the Hubble telescope. With a deep sigh, he continued.

“There were just way too many things that relied on Glass-COM. Asia Bank was the crux of it, but nowhere near the majority. No one has any money now, none of the companies have their shipping orders, planes, boats, trains… No one has any directions. No weather reports to guide them. Without their systems, power companies had no customer records, no means of distribution, and no way to harness any electricity. Manufacturing has halted, because no one can find the data necessary or even run the machines without power. There is nothing left. No one knows what to do.”

My mother stared at my father in horror. “Are we finished then? Is there truly nothing anyone can do about it?” He nodded. Silently he gazed at the flames burning in contradicting brightness to the stark surroundings.

I glanced at my sister, scared and confused within my mother’s protective embrace. She didn’t understand what was going on, but having my parents unsure of things was enough to frighten her. I still didn’t entirely grasp the whole idea of the situation. ‘No power’, and ‘no internet ever again’ were foreign concepts to me. I’d been born and raised on it.

The next morning, a short man with a nearly bald head came running across the side walk that ran alongside the road, just in front of our house. He began pounding on the front door as soon as he could reach it, letting his body slam into it rather harshly. As my dad opened the door for him, the little man began talking almost too fast for his lips to follow.

“Take your family, and RUN!!! Run, run, run! Riots! Huge crowds! They’re raiding all the buildings they come across, looking for food and little girls and water and whatever they can carry! Get out now! While you still can! Head north. Really far north. Stay out of the big cities. Make for the little ones, but watch your back there too! No one has food now, no one has water! Take what you can and GO!”

With that, the short man took off running again, heading for another house up the block. After the briefest of pauses, my father jumped into action. “Mary! Get the travel cases, only the ones with wheals or back straps. Put all the food and water into them you can!” I’d never seen my father so frightened. “Dad, what’ll I do?” He looked at me. “Help your sister get some clothes into a travel bag. And grab some for yourself. Only take what you can carry. No gadgets, they won’t work.”

Nodding, I fled up the stairs as fast as my legs could carry me. Together, me and my sister grabbed what we could from our dressers and stuffed them haphazardly into our duffle bags. Ducking into my parents’ room, we also grabbed some things for them as well.

In the kitchen, my mother was hurriedly throwing plastic pouches of food into a roll-along travel bag that my parents had gotten for their wedding, a hand-me-down that had survived many generations of my mother’s family. It was all faded, but you could still see the vague outlines of flowers on it. Way way back, before the war, traveling had been a common thing. Airplanes, boats, even trains. After the war depleted things so much, only people who were considered upper-middle class and upper class could afford to go anywhere without taking a car. And cars were pretty expensive, until an electric car that was actually efficient was produced. It was still something of a luxury to take a long trip, anywhere.

My dad came in from the back yard, carrying a really old looking tin, colorless from years of aging. It was all dirty, as were his hands. Without bothering to tell us what was in it, let alone open it, he stuffed it into the back-bag that I was holding, which had his things in it. Slinging the bag over his shoulders, he helped my mother finish stuffing the rest of our food into the roll bag, then closed it in a hurry. Pausing to breath deep a few times, he took the handle of the roll-bag and headed for the door. With nothing else to do, I followed him, with my mother and sister right behind me. We didn’t know where we were going to go, or what we would do once we got there, but there didn’t really seem to be much point in doing anything really. I mean hey, there was no internet, and if ‘never’ was as long as I thought it was, then there was nothing left. Just like my mother had said.

But nevertheless, we followed my father out the front door, and along the side walk, in a generally northern direction. We could see other people, a couple blocks down, also heading north. And still others peered out of their windows, seeming as if they had no hope, nor reason. A feeling of ill ease came over me as I glanced around us. What if we never came home again? What if things really didn’t get better? What would happen to us then?

Turning my attention to where I was going, I heard sounds far to the south. It was amazing what I could hear when I didn’t have music, words, or other sound affects being streamed into my head through the speakers that our NET glasses had on their ear-pieces.

Screaming. Bashing, clanging, glass shattering. Crunching, yelling, shouting. Glancing back, my father drew a sharp breath. “Hurry!” We all took off running, my mother reaching out a pale hand to grab my sister’s small one in hers, to keep her with us.

We were out of breath quickly, but we kept on racing even when the air we breathed began to hurt our lungs, and sweat was pouring down our bodies. Cramps came in sharp stabs, and our legs began to ache. But the sounds behind us kept following, no matter how fast we ran. Finally my sister tripped up and fell hard, bringing my mother with her. My father stopped running, and I barely avoided slamming into him, almost falling myself.

“Come on! We’ve only been running for half an hour! We have to keep going! They’ll catch us.” My mother shook her head. “She can’t go on, Harold. She’s spent. We need to rest a few minutes.” My father glanced between them and the sounds that were rising up from the south of our once glorious city. Finally he nodded once. “Ok. But we need to get out of the open. We need to hide. Can you at least keep walking, Tara?”

With an embarrassed yeah, she got back up clumsily, helping our mother up as well. Leading the way, our father led us into a large, long-empty building that had a worn sign across the front. All that could be read was ‘High’. So this had been a school once. Long ago. The halls within this musty, dirty, dusty building were dark and eerie, like something out of a horror movie. All it needed were flickering lights, creaking doors, and scary music and it would be perfect. Following the halls, we came to a door marked ‘cafeteria’. This my father opened with a little difficulty, as the wooden door had warped with age and the hinges on it shrieked in irritation. As we entered the room, I was floored. There were so many tables. Had there honestly been so many teens to share a meal together at one time? I’d seen movies and pictures with many crowds of people in them, but I’d always assumed that they’d been edited to look so full. But here was some proof that there actually had been so many people together in one place. There could have possible been a whole five hundred students in this room at one time, and not a one touch elbows.

Bright light flooded in through the tall, wide windows, made of real glass. My father though went and drew the shades that covered the windows, bringing the light down to a dim minimum. “You girls sit and rest a bit. Cameron, you come with me. Leave the bags here.” Curious, I followed my father back out the door, and down the hallway. We made a few turns, before my father found a door he had obviously been looking for. Entering, he walked up to a huge desk that was at the edge of a large room.

Finally, my father began speaking as he went through the drawers, removing papers (real PAPER!) and small books. “As a boy, I used to run through the halls of this building. This was my play area. Only my grandfather knew I played here. This was once a school. Kids your age looked forward to coming here for their next year of learning. Many things were taught here, to more teens than you could imagine. My grandfather used to come here with me and he’d tell me stories of packed rooms and real teachers.

“He also told me that things could not continue the way they were. He said that one day everything would fall apart, and people would not be safe in their homes. He was branded a loony by many, but I think that was only out of fear that what he was saying would end up being very true. I myself didn’t believe him, but I do remember all the things he told me.”

Laying out a piece of paper that had been folded many times, he pointed to a particular pattern that resembled an awkward spider web. “This is where we are. This little symbol here represents this school. This paper here is a map of the state. In other schools, in other states, you can find a map like this somewhere. It is most likely in the principal’s office, as this one is. “

Folding it up, he tucked it into a pocket on his worn shirt. “My grandfather had spent years filling these drawers with things that he was sure would be necessary to survive this very event. Directions for starting fires without lighters; instructions for building shelters out of pieces of rubble; and even instructions for how to build a cart for transporting things manually, as opposed to electronically. There is also his journal. It is in this bag here. This is real leather. This bag is over three hundred years old. There’s a bunch of pictures and drawings in a pocket inside it that are all marked. It’s our family tree going back to the 2200’s. Pretty amazing stuff. I was never motivated enough to read the journal, maybe you could get something out of it.”

He handed me the leather bag, with its single shoulder strap. It was dark brown, and pieced together with large cording. I’d seen things kind of like it, in the old movies. This bag was common back before the mid-1900’s.

My father grabbed all the rest of the papers, folded them in half, and led us back to the cafeteria. The girls were sitting in the corner, hugging each other fiercely. I didn’t know why at first, and then I heard it. People. Screaming, yelling. Stuff breaking. It sounded like it was only a block or so away. We hadn’t been able to hear it deeper in the school. And for fear of being heard, the girls hadn’t dared to yell for us. I looked to my father. “What’ll we do?” He stared at the window in blind horror. “I don’t know. We don’t have time to run, they’ll see us. If we head out, we are as good as dead. But if they come in here-.” My sister squeaked in terror. Glancing at her, he swallowed back anything else he was going to say.

And then his eyes widened in realization. “The sign! They won’t dare come in. Not ever. No never.” He shook his head. In confusion I scrunched my eyebrows up. “Huh?” My dad pointed in a vague direction hidden by the shades. “The sign! There’s a huge sign out the front entrance, that way. It says that the school has been condemned until further notice, due to suspected presence of the plague!” My mother gasped in sheer horror.

“The plague?” she nearly shrieked. “You’ve brought us to a place where the plague is? Oh my GOSH Harold! What is wrong with you?! You put us at-!” He cut her off with a loud “SHHHH!” Glancing briefly at the window he spoke in a loud whisper. “I played here as a boy. I’ve never had it. Listen, it was only suspected that the plague was here, never proven. Fear of it was so high that if someone even hinted the plague might be around, people ran the other way. As long as we are quiet, they should take one look at that sign and keep going. Just don’t make a sound. The windows will muffle some of it, but don’t risk any noise at all.”

My mother closed her lips firmly, held tighter to Tara, and stared in wide-eyed fright at the huge windows. My father’s breath came in shallow ragged draws as he stood barely leaned towards the tall glass that was the only real barrier between us and the mob outside. Myself, I was almost paralyzed with fear, but I found myself irresistibly drawn to the shades.

Now

I blinked in surprise as the fat droplets that had been cooling my head began to come faster, turning quickly into a shower. Hastily covering up the yellowed papers with my wrinkled hands, I rose to my feet and made for my shelter. I had stacked some old dry-walling into a three sided, roofed hallow amongst the rubble. This wasn’t my usual residence. I had traveled here to get my mind into this telling with more assuredness. This particular spot amid the ruined heaps of rubble and destruction was the place where I had been born. This had been my home for fourteen years. And yet, at the time I had known my way around the internet better than I had even known my own house. I could only remember what colors the house had been because it was burned into my memory from the hasty flight from pending doom. They had been kind of an ugly green-grey. I still couldn’t put my mind on what color the floor had been, just that all of it had been the same color. A synthetic carpet that was the run-of-the-mill flooring used in those days, straight out of China.

But it didn’t matter now. All that was truly left of what had once been our home was an unshapely pile of plastic and clay all melted, burned, and broken. Weeds had sprung up in the absence of weed sprays, the main sign of life around here. Some grass struggled to grow in patches, mostly on the outskirts of town and out in what had been called ‘the barrens’ for as long as I could remember.

This time I’ve allowed myself to get distracted intentionally. I dread putting the next sequence of memories into inked letters on a page. Somehow, giving form to this horror made it seem more real. I had tried to block it out for ages, but I know I have to write it out. It has to be presented, as it occurred, without dulling it down. It is bloody, it is terrible, and it is wrong. But I have to. Sitting once more upon my chair, this time under my make-shift shelter, I once again force my old hands to bring the pen to the paper and produce words.

Then

Drawing near to the shades over the almost floor-to-ceiling windows, I barely slide two of the slats half an inch apart, and put my eyes up to it to peer out. My mother gasped softly, and my father moaned but didn’t move. I saw things then I wish I had never seen.

A mob of people came running down the street, a group so large my first impression was to be surprised that there were so many people left in all the earth. But that was a fleeting thought, as the horror behind the sight caught my attention.

The ones in the front of the group were screaming in terror, obviously being pursued by the people behind them. The absolute terror on their faces sent cold fear down to my core. As they drew near and began moving past, I heard the front chasers yell out to the ones behind them who were going slower that the school was condemned and to keep going. One of the chasers caught up to a man who had slowed down too much, and grabbed him by the back of his shirt. Coming to an abrupt stop, he threw the man into the crowd behind him, then kept going. But my attention remained on the fallen man.

As the people of the mob caught him, they began beating him. Some had stick of wood, others had rusty shards of metal, or shiny pieces of broken glass. Cuts, gashes and other horrifying wounds quickly covered him as he screamed terribly. The throng surrounded him till I could no longer see him, but I could see the blood flying, and then one particularly gruesome looking swing from a glass shard ended the screaming. After a minute, the throng continued. Further down the block, I saw a woman grabbed by her short brown hair and thrown into the throng. What I saw then was too horrible for description. After they were done with her, they beat her horribly, then passed her back along the crowd. That was when I saw it. The box. There was a huge box make-shift thrown together out of plasti-glass, and sitting on wheels. As the box was rolled past, the woman was tossed carelessly into it. Inside the box, there were already about twenty girls, only half of which seemed older than 18.

I choked to keep from throwing up, tears running down my cheeks. Behind the box, there were only a few more people, carrying torches. They stopped every now and again, lighting up strips of cloth draped around broken ragged pieces of wood. Once they had caught fire, the guys holding them threw them into buildings on either side of the street. Flames raged down the road, visible for miles to the south in a trail behind them. I knew then what was coming. Dropping the shade I lurched backward.

“Out! Out into the hall!” I yelped as quietly as my fear would allow. My mother jumped to her feet, yanking my sister with her. My father pulled the door open, and shoved them into the hallway. As I reached the doorway, I heard a yell from outside. “School was for losers!” There was rough laughter, and then the tall window exploded in a shower of glass as a burning strip of wood arched into the room and landed in the middle of the floor. Me and my father both dove through the door-way before the last of the glass landed.

“Hey! I think I saw something move in there!” The yell came from outside. “Ah shut up. You would attack your own shadow if I didn’t introduce you to it every morning, dip!” There was more laughter and then there was only the sound of burning, and the smell of smoldering linoleum.

Afraid to move, we watched through the open door as the cafeteria slowly caught fire. Once the hungry flames began devouring tables, there was no stopping it. It surged and flourished, growing with such speed it was frightening. The smells of burned wood, linoleum and plastic mingled until it was overwhelming.

Finally my father grabbed us and helped us up. “We need to go back the way we came. South. That mob is headed north, and they’ve passed us by. So we should go south, away from them.” My mother nodded, and my sister stared through glassy eyes.

We walked back to the door we had entered through, not even forty-five minutes ago. My father waved us into a side-room as he approached the door. Peering around the door-frame, I watched as he cautiously opened the door. After a couple long minutes, he looked back over his shoulder at us, then gestured us to follow. Out in the street, the smoke and smells grew even stronger, burning the lungs and stinging the eyes. Where this road connected with the main road, the one the mob had run down, destruction was rampant. There were bloodied, mangled bodies, so horribly disfigured I dare not describe them. Blood pooled and flowed in the cracked, disheveled pavement. Houses and buildings along the main route and fanning out around them were blazing high into the sky with greedy orange and red flame. The sky in the distance was an angry black cloud of smoke.

My father rushed my sister and mother along roads that led west, then south of the disaster, while I followed in a state of shock. Such terrible things people could do to each other. As I was just getting into the teen years, I hadn’t ever seen anything so terrifying as this.

The sun was shining crimson and black through the smoke, ominous and foreboding, when we reached the southern edge of town. By then everything hurt, from my brain all the way down to my toes. My father set my sister down and looked around wearily. Finally he nodded toward a large, dark warehouse. “We’ll sleep here tonight. It was a food storage place, but there isn’t likely to be anything left.” All the windows were smashed out, and the walls were singed black. They’d tried to burn it, but it had been made of tin.

Entering through the small employee entrance, we carefully made our way through a maze of overturned and destroyed shipping crates. Towards the back of the building, there was one crate that was facing the back wall. I dropped my sack just inside it and plopped onto the cold concrete floor. As the others followed, I took my shoes off with a small groan, swallowing hard. Removing my socks, I gaped at my feet. They were covered in tiny bumps that were all swollen and hard. My dad glanced at my feet and grimaced.

“Those are blisters, son. They’ll hurt for a while, but they will go away. Just put your feet up and sleep without your socks.” My sister took her own socks off and squeaked. “Daddy! I have some too! Is it contagious?” Our father smiled. “No honey. It’s from all the walking you did today. It’ll be okay, I promise.”

Our mother glanced at him curiously. “How do you know all these things?” He looked at the windows high above the floor for a few seconds, then shrugged lightly. “My grandfather was something of a survivalist. He used to take me on long trips. We had to fend for ourselves, and in some cases, live off the land.”

Without much more conversation, we laid ourselves out comfortably and drifted off to sleep.

Now

As the sky turned to a soft orange, shifted into a pure gold, then faded to dark purple, I laid my pen on the crisp paper. With the coming of dark, my companion had returned to the ruins of the house, where I had made my temporary camp. According to plan, we would walk to the warehouse in the morning. My plan was to retrace my path, showing my companion my story as I wrote it for the future generations. It was my idea that if there was someone who could show my story, and who could understand the layout that surrounded it, then perhaps it would seem a little more real. I had shown him the school already. The one we had first hidden in. Things had been pretty much the way we’d left them. The school was a charred black pile of overgrown rubble. Most of the buildings in the town were. That first raiding party had not been the only one to swoop through with a wake of fire and destruction, simply the tip of the sail.

My companion built a fire with the bundle of wood chunks he’d managed to scavenge from all the wreckage in his walk. He had gotten to the point where he understood that when I was writing, I liked to be alone. Having someone there was too distracting. It made it hard for me to focus on what I was trying to say. He also was too tempted to try talking if he didn’t have a particular task to accomplish. Thus he set about putting a meal together. He drew out an old rusted pot, some utensils, and pouches of dried long last food items. All these things were from my stashes of things. I had given them to him.

In return for his protection against those who would try to kill an old man in the way of the world, I was teaching him the things I knew. How to read and write, how to find food and water, how to survive, and beyond that, how to live.

After our meal I gave him a brief lesson in reading, with a copy of a classic by Charles Dickens. Then we laid out our sleeping mats and went to bed. The early morning mist settling on my tough, weather worn skin roused me from sleep. A dark shadow and low voices hovered near the edge of the rubble across from me. Without fully opening my eyes, I glanced over at my companion on the other side of the fire. His eyes were wide open and he was shaking in his blanket. Just barely, I shook my head. Don’t do anything stupid, I thought fiercely.

A few seconds later I heard what they were saying. “It’s just an old man and a middle-aged guy. Doesn’t look like they’ve got enough rations to make it to the next town.” Another one spoke. “Alright. Keep a tail on them. If they do anything fishy or get too close to the boundary, let me know.” The first one hesitated, then said “Well that’s the strange thing. The old one is using an odd looking thing from the Old World, and is making markings on yellowed flimsy flat things that are also from the Old World. And last night, he was saying weird things to the young one, while pointing into one if the objects that holds many flimsy pieces with markings on them.” There was a pause. “Well did it seem dangerous? Or in any way useful?” “No, not really…” There was a quietly stinging flesh on flesh sound, accompanied by a soft grunt. “Then don’t bother my time about it.” The dark shadows faded and we were returned to silence. The uninformed would wake to this scene assuming they were completely alone.

Sitting up, I cast my blanket aside as if I hadn’t a care in the world. Under my breath I told my companion “act as if you aren’t aware of their presence. Knowledge is power. We have the upper hand because in confidence they believe we are ignorant to them. Come, let us eat and prepare for today’s journey.”

After we had eaten the meal my companion heated for us, he hesitantly went off to gather some sticks to carry with us. The availability of firewood wasn’t guarantied. Also I wanted to take a few more minutes to look around at this pile of ruins that was all that was left of my beginning. I felt my eyes sting with grief, and cleared my throat. In this, the New World, crying did nothing but lessen the body moisture, precious even when the water sources were returning to the land.

A sigh escaped my lungs as I looked at the traces where walls had once stood, the wider open area where the stairs had led to the upstairs. One wall in the middle of the house reached about chest height, with rubble arching down from it. Any of the walls that were bumped too harshly crumbled to dust. There were only piles of rough, crunchy sand to mark that there had been windows.

Finally I forced my chest to fill with as much air as I could as I glanced up at the blue-ish grey sky. The storm the previous evening had left no traces on the sky, and the ground was only somewhat damp. The weeds that grew in sparse patches held droplets of clear moisture on their browning leaves. With every rainfall the land returned to some of what its former glory must have been.

At last I turned away from the devastation that had been home, eyes closed to keep the tears away. As I opened my eyes, I saw tightly closed fingers approach my face rapidly, followed by the bloom of bright red pain in my eyes. My world darkened instantly.

I took a deep breath in to refresh my body, then opened my eyes. I was only mildly surprised at my surroundings. I was in a dark room, musty and dank. Tall metal bars blocked three sides of my tiny room, covered in rust. I was in a very old jail cell. Cells hadn’t been used in an eternity for the purpose of guarding criminals. Even before the Old World ended. After the plague, people had been exiled to places where whole towns had been condemned. They were transported there in an auto-piloted electric car, with only enough energy to reach the town they’d been condemned to.

My companion was in the next cell over. He was lying in a jumbled heap as if he’d been carelessly tossed like a rag doll. I watched his side a minute, then looked away assured he was breathing. A shadow caught my attention. I could only vaguely see that it was a person, as the grey of its face gave it away. I did not say anything, looking instead to the little window several feet off the floor at the top of the room. From the slant of the sky, I knew a full day had passed. It was evening, and soon even that would be gone.

I noticed then that all my things were laid out in neat order atop a small table at the edge of the little cell I was in, at the foot of the jail cell’s cot. Scooting over slightly, I browsed the items to be sure everything was accounted for. Not one item of my inventory was missing. Odd. Usually a person who was captured lost at least their food, and or water if it was available. And yet, my food packages and water canteen were there amongst the papers, makeshift knives, pens, pencils, books, interesting trinkets I’d picked up, and the picture. The picture of my family. Briefly I let my old and slightly shaky fingers brush its surface as I picked through my things. It was faded now, the edges turned yellow and so worn I feared any day now it might dissolve to ashes as most things had.

I kept the shadow at the edge of my consciousness as I picked up one of the pens and held it end to end in my hands, turning it as I thought. What did these people want? Why were we allowed to live, let alone retain our belongings? I set the pen down, laid back on the bed and stared at the darkening ceiling as if to go to sleep. I noticed that this cot was rather lavishly furnished. There were two thick blankets for lying on, and one heavy one for covering. There was also a pillow at the head of it.

I must have been more exhausted than I knew, because my eyes began to drift closed. The last thing I noticed before I succumbed to the innocence of sleep was that the figure in the shadows had moved right up to the bars. A sad face stared at me between the bars of the cell, old and worn.

Morning’s light glinted off something and woke me sharply from my sleep. Jumping full upright, I looked around hastily. I was right where my mind had left me in the gloom of coming night; in the dank, musty cell of this ancient jail. In the light of day, I could more easily see my surroundings. The floor of this building had rotted out and been mostly removed, exposing grey dirt beneath. There was no glass in the two small windows that allowed light to partially reveal the room. Green moss clung to the walls, and some weeds tried to take root at the edges. It was apparent however that this room was used often. A barely discernible track had been worn into the ground, leading into the room and to each of the three cells respectively. The third cell’s door hung awkwardly on a broken hinge, the bottom one missing completely.

My companion was sitting on his bed, his head in his hands. “What is to become of us?” He moaned softly. “I don’t know. If they’d wanted us dead, we would be. If it was our rations they were after, they would have taken them and left us in the open. But my things are here, and your bag is sitting in that corner over there. Where she was sitting.” He looked up in confusion. “She? She who?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. But there was a woman watching us last night. She was sitting on that little bench there. She didn’t say anything.”

A man entered the room suddenly. He carried a wooden plank run smooth, with two plates sitting on it. There was food on top of it. Ration food heated and dished out. And water. Two clear glasses of water. Not just any water; clear water. My companion’s eyes widened drastically. He’d never seen clear water before.

The man put the ration servings on the little table at the edge of the room, then fumbled for some keys. “Now if you try anything funny, travelers, there’s more than a few out there who’d pummel you flat for the fun of it. The Missus is the only thing keeping you from watering the dirt right now, so I’d behave if I’s you.” He opened my companion’s door first, and set one of the plates on the tiny end table by the bed, then put a glass next to it. Closing the barred door behind him, he came into my cell next. After he’d served me, he made sure my door was closed well too. When neither of us ate, he shook his head. “You’d better eat all of it. Lotta the boys’re jealous you’re getting the good stuff. We’re the workers, you’re an outsider. We wouldn’t have done anything funny to it. That’d be a waste of good food and water.”

My companion delved into the food, as I ate too. Finally he sat for the longest time just looking at the glass of water. “It’s so pretty…” He breathed softly. He was all choked up, as if his life was complete now. “How does it get so-so clear?” I smiled sadly.

Finally, a while later, a different man came into the room. He came over to my cell, opened the door, and gestured me out with a grunt. I pointed to my companion, but he shook his head and grunted again. As he led, I followed him out of the room into the bright sunlight. I was somewhat surprised at what I saw. The rest of the jail building was gone, obliterated. Only that small part with the three cells remained.

The rough looking man led me through a well-worn path around rubble. Finally we went to a house that stood tall and proud. There was nothing wrong with it, other than not having real windows. The openings were covered with heavy draperies. But the rest of the house was intact. I raised my eyebrows as we entered the front doorway. Down a short hall and through one room, into yet another room. There was a desk in the middle of the room, and a tall chair. These were the ones from the high school. After all this time, I recognized it.

A hand waved away the rough man who’d led me here, and he left without speaking, replacing the covering in his wake. After a long moment, the big heavy chair turned. An old woman sat in the chair, a surprisingly sturdy presence for her age. I couldn’t tell how old she was, but definitely older than most these days. She studied me as I measured her up. She had thick waves of hair, drawn away from her face and swept up off her neck in a make-shift clamp. Steely blue eyes graced her worn face. A small chin and button nose gave her something of a childish appearance, while her tall back and stiff shoulders spoke of authority. She wore a lavish red shirt with black piping edging. Lace adorned the cuffs, dangling from folded hands as her elbows rested on the shiny top of the desk.

In a firm voice, the woman finally spoke. “You are from the old world, aren’t you.” Not really a question, more of an observation. I nodded, not yet ready to speak. “And you seem to have survived your years well.” Again a statement. Her eyes revealed that there were many things she’d like to ask me, but she was hesitant to bring them to light. Finally I opened my mouth. “And what is the nature of our visit here?” She gave a small smile of reserved lightness. “You are our guests. I wish to know the reason you have come to my town.” I raised one eyebrow. “Your town?”

She nodded. “All that you’ve seen since the buildings on the edge you entered, to the west edge, belongs to me. I am in charge of this town.” I pursed my lips in contemplation. “And what do you call this utopia, Missus?” She smiled genuinely now. “I do not. The people call it Chicago, a term you must be familiar with as you’re from the Old World.” I swallowed thickly to keep my chest in check.

“And what of yourself. How is that a woman, let alone one of your age, has come to dominate an entire town?” She shrugged. “People listen to me. They do as I say. I’ve had to fight and claw my way to the top, and now that I am in charge, I can sit back and teach people the ways to be a society.” She hesitated for a second. “My men informed me that you were writing?”

That proved it. “Ah. So not so alone then. You are of the Old World as well?” She nodded. “I am. My father could not afford the COM-Glasses though, so we were not so devastated when the world ended.” I nodded. It made sense. And if they didn’t have COM-Glasses, she wouldn’t likely know how to write or read herself. “So what is it you want from us?” She shrugged again. “We will talk about it later. You will return to your cell. Write more. Relax. Enjoy a day where you have no need to worry about whether you will live the night.”

She picked up a tiny bell and rang it. Mr. Rough came back instantly, holding the door covering open for me to exit. With a last glance at her, I followed him back through the rubble to my small jail cell. My companion stopped midstride, apparently having paced the entire duration of my absence. He sighed in relief as the haggard man put me back behind the bars and locked the door.

As I sat down on my bed in idle thought, my companion grasped the bars in fright. “What did they do? What do they want? What are they going to do with us?” I glanced at him, my mind racing. I had something of an idea what this woman wanted, I just wasn’t sure why. She was so old, why would it matter in her last years? What did she intend to do with it?

“She wants me to keep writing. She didn’t tell me what she wanted from us, just that we are safe here. We will not be harmed.” He shook his head a few times. “I don’t think we can trust her. I wouldn’t trust anyone who’d lock us up even a third as far as I could throw them. And I’m not built for throwing things.”

I drew my lips together and looked out the little window in thought, then I nodded slowly. “Alright then, as you wish, woman.” I sat down at the makeshift desk, put all of the items on it back into the back sack except the paper and pens, then I drew a fresh sheet in front of me and put the tip of a pen to it watching the black ink spread neatly and with intention across the smooth yellowed surface.

Then

The thick, stinging wafts of smoke clogged our noses as we walked carefully amongst the ruined buildings. We had tied clothes around our mouths and noses, but smoke still got through. We had woken early to the sounds of yelling and screaming. Quickly, we had made our way to the door we had used to come into the building, and my father had peered out to see what was happening.

A small group of people was being chased down the street toward us, the men pursuing them carrying ramshackle weapons with bloodthirsty looks deep in their eyes. Two of the women were carrying small children, falling behind with the extra weight. They wouldn’t make it far. Breathing quickly, my father closed his eyes and looked down, swallowing thickly.

In fluid motion, he dropped his sack, reached in and pulled out the metal box. He withdrew a handgun from it, stepped out of the doorway, and in succession killed the three men with single shots each. The loud repercussions were still ringing in my ears, drowned only by the shrill screams my sister and mother emitted. The running people slowly stopped, looking back in shock that their predators were so suddenly ceased.

And all I could do was stare at my father, open mouthed. A gun. A gun. He’d broken mandate. He possessed a gun. Where had he even gotten it? Guns had been banned after the third world war. Only government officials and security cleared law officers were allowed to carry guns. They weren’t sold anywhere. Although I had heard that there were some guns available in other countries, it had been a long time since I had heard of any that could be acquired in America.

My father stood idly, staring at the sky with the gun loosely dangling in his lowered hand. Finally he choked softly and fiddled with something on the side of the gun, before returning it to the metal box. I felt as if that should be capital. Metal Box. That innocent little Box now seemed like a cardboard box holding snakes.

After he had put the box back in his bag, my father motioned for us to follow him. My mother stood her ground though, firmly holding my sister behind her with an arm across her stomach. “You have a gun?! Where did you get that! What are you doing with that around our children? Are you trying to get them killed? Do you know you could have been arrested? Gees, Harold! How could you keep something like that from me!”

My father shook his head. “Mary, it doesn’t matter now. There isn’t anybody to arrest me. Was I to let those two poor children be horribly mutilated, their mothers thoroughly- used before being murdered?” He shook his head again. “It’s safe. I ask you to trust me. It is safe if it isn’t touched. I’m keeping it. If someone tries to kill our children, would you hope I would do anything no matter how horrible, if it means they’ll live?”

My mother gulped softly, her eyes drawn to my sister and myself. Finally she nodded slowly, then took her arm off my sister. Gently pushing her forward, she took up the rear as we left the building. The small group of people looked at the ruined city around them before following us at a slight distance.

Now, we edged our way around some buildings that still burned. The materials that had produced these shoddy living spaces made the smoke acrid and black, the flames a brief blue, or green in different places.

At long last, we reached the edge of the buildings. The world beyond the hobble that had once been a vast and swelling society, an empire almost, was a sordid wasteland. Barren and lifeless, the slightly rolling land held only the promise of misery and death. The people in our trail stared at it hopelessly. A couple of them glanced at the inferno that had been home. My father shook his head. “I know it looks endless, but it’s not. There’s another city two day’s walk south of here. We can make it, we just have to keep going.”

Without looking to see if anyone was following him, my father set off across the land. Each footfall set off a small plume of dusty grit which settled back quickly. Hiking my bag further up onto my shoulder, I took my sister’s hand and led her after him. I could hear that some of the people followed us, but two of the men stayed there, as well as one woman. And thus the weak were weeded out. I shuddered that the thought even crossed my mind.

Hours later, my sister slumped to the ground and I allowed myself to be dragged down with her. Breathing raggedly the dusty air, I didn’t even bother to rub my feet because that would have made them hurt more. The other people went down as well. My father turned back. “Listen, there’s a small stand of rocks just ahead. Try and make it there. The full sun will fry us before we’ve even had a moment.”

With much effort, we dragged ourselves up again and continued for another half hour or so before we reached the pile of rocks. Huddling beneath it, we didn’t move, or even speak. My head throbbed and my ears were ringing. My lungs, legs, back, and even my arms ached. I shook with exhaustion. Tears stung my eyes. I just wanted to sob. Both of the children were crying, as were their mothers. Even Tara was sniffling.

My father sat on a rock at the edge of our little shelter, eyes scanning the land in all directions. He seemed a little tired too, but not nearly as much as the rest of us. It surprised me that he fared so well, compared to the rest of us.

Forcing myself to drag my weary body to sit next to him, I questioned him on this. He looked down at me, a soft smile on his face. “I was going to lead you into this as well, as you got a little older. I wanted you to finish your studies first. I wanted to be sure you’d get a chance to learn essential things before I brought you to this. My grandfather taught me many things to survive. We used to go on long trips out here, with nothing but the clothes on our backs. He said he wanted to be sure that when the world finally gave up and dropped off that I’d have a fair chance to survive it. He didn’t tell me much of his past, but he showed me many things. How to survive out here, how to build things that would help me out, how to fight.” He hesitated, then looked me in the eyes in a way that demanded attention. “He gave me the gun.” My eyes widened. “He gave it to me, he showed me how to clean it, how to use it… He gave me a lot of ammunition and told me how to find more. He said that it was his great-grandfather’s, from the war. The gun was smuggled home amongst his things, broken up in bits so it could not be recognized. It’s been buried in yards, or built into walls… Anyplace that was not likely to be searched. After the plague, it was easier to hide. Not many left even knew what guns looked like.”

I sat a little higher, my body slightly more refreshed. “But how could you guys keep something like that around? Guns were outlawed to prevent another world war. All the history books say that people who owned guns, regular people, were the ones who started the war. Allowing the common populace to own guns is a dangerous thing, father.”

He shook his head sadly. “Well my grandfather told me quite a different story. He comes from a long line of people who would be called ‘rebels’ or ‘opposers.’ But they knew the truth. Those records of history have been nudged and modified to attend to political necessity. It’s always been common practice for events to be recorded in ways that furthered their causes.

“The reason the war really started, is that politicians can’t ever be satisfied. They always want more. More land, more money, most importantly, more power. The war started because America and China couldn’t agree on who should own what. China wanted to own all of the Middle East, but America wanted a portion of it too, and no one could come to agreement. As things progressed, they started bombing each other, and eventually, it broke into an all-out war. Smaller countries had to decide which of the two majority countries they wished to join, and finally, not one country was idle on the sidelines. So the war started because the people in suits were too greedy.

“The regular people who owned guns were the ones who stopped the war. The people decided to lay down their arms, and refused to fight for anyone. Without players, the men in suits had to sit back down and figure something out. But the toll had already been taken. Many people died.

“Jealous that the common person had held more power than themselves in determining the outcome of the war, the politicians agreed to blame citizens for the war. Most of the leaders of the rebellion that led to the cease fire were slaughtered as the governments called them war criminals. And the common person lost all power as the government stripped away their rights to own firearms.

“But the problem behind that was that the people who listened to them were not the ones to be feared. For many years people lived in fear as gangs and terrorists wreaked havoc on a defenseless world. This was simply more ammunition for the politicians to use against guns. Then the plague hit. A lot of the gangs and terrorists were wiped out, as they were generally a close knit bunch who stayed together. It’s been safer for the general populace since then.”

My father looked back out across the land, and I realized that the others had all been listening raptly. One of the men shook his head. “Rubbish,” he said firmly. My father shrugged non-chalantly. “I don’t care whether you believe me or not. It’s your business. Just realized that society as a whole is gone. The history books are useless. In fact, non-existent as they were all on the internet.”

There were no replies to what he said, but the shock of our current situation slammed into each of us again. No internet. No Glass-COM, no World Food, no water deliveries. No Jobs, no cars, no electricity, no homes… The world around me blurred. What was the point? Why keep living? If the world was over, why keep going?

The red-black world I had collapsed into began rocking back and forth, then ebbed back to allow the real world to shine through. “Son, here. Drink some water. You’re badly dehydrated.” My father handed me a plastic pouch with water in it. They made the container grey so you couldn’t tell how filmy the water was, and for someone who had been born and raised on it, there was no difference to tell. The water eased my aches and soothed my pounding head.

A while later, my father roused us to our feet and pushed us to continue. We trudged onward, till the setting sun cast long shadows alongside us and the sky had turned a deep purple. Finally we had reached a tall ridge, cratered with pockmarks and cracks. There was a small bronze sign on a worn post. The letters were engraved, but the grooves were beginning to fill in with the passage of time. They could still be read though, and I traced my fingers over the lines. It said that this was the spot that the notorious rebel Ricard Antony was finally cornered and killed. According to the story, and all recorded history, he had been the reason the war had started. My father’s story however accredited him with ending it. Confusion scrunched my brows together as I stared at the remnants that showed this had been a huge battlefield, with disastrous results. Had power struggles truly led to such destruction? Were there really such petty men out there?

We settled down in a particularly deep crater in the side of the tall cliff, not even bothering to try to start a fire. We were too tired. My father rationed out some of our food amongst all of us and after we had eaten we laid ourselves out to sleep.

Now

The following morning, I was wakened by a mist settling on my face. Opening my eyes hastily, I looked around in confusion. Mist? Water? What- I looked up at the source of the water. It was raining. The overcast sky was pouring it’s bounty out upon the land, while the gentle wind pushed innocent pristine droplets through the tiny square opening in the wall of my current residence. Glancing into the adjoining cell I noticed that my companion yet slumbered. Returning my gazed to the window, I watched as the grey roiling clouds cleaned the world. Every drop that landed upon the scorched, barren land, gave back a little of its life.

Finally though, I settled back to my seat at the small table, where I had fallen asleep the night before. I picked up the sheets of paper on its slightly rough surface, briefly rereading them. The following sequences of events cause my chest to constrict in agony. I would never forget it. I had managed to blot most of it out, keep it from being at the fore of my thoughts these long years. But I needed to revisit those aching moments. I blinked my eyes a moment. Then I picked up where I had left off.

Then

Loud shuffling and shouting roused me from sleep. It was almost pitch dark, only bright and blaring harsh flames providing sight. And I wished I was blind and deaf. I was being dragged roughly and furiously towards the edges of the rock wall around us. I could see my sister running just beyond my feet, and my mother pushing her to run faster. Behind them, I could see the rest of the small group that had been with us, scattered and running in all directions trying to flee something. I couldn’t tell what at first, then I made it out. There were about ten men with torches beating down as many of the people we had saved as they could catch, chasing after the ones who ran. Two of them were running after us as well. I yelped and turned, stumbling to my feet and carrying my own weight as my father released my arm.

We raced along the edge of the cliff, as fast as our weary legs could carry us, tripping and weaving in the darkness. I could hear the men behind us getting closer, and I yelled to my dad. I could hear him fumbling with something as he ran, then he yelled for us to drop to the ground. As I fell, I heard the world around me explode in a shattering boom that left my ears ringing. It was followed by two more, causing my eyes to blur with reddish black pain. I could no longer hear the men following us. Turning cautiously, I could see two dark forms on the ground, only barely visible in silhouette from the distant fires of other people. Their torches had snuffed out on impact with the ground.

In the light of the other torches, I could see that everyone had stopped in their tracks at the sounds. The other eight men paused, but only for a short moment. Then they continued chasing and beating the people left behind. I noticed that one of the women with a child had managed to get behind us, safe from the carnage in the small cave. Tara was crying and our mother was trying to comfort her.

My father spoke in a broken voice. “We need to move. If they- get done they might try to brave this fatal weapon and come after us. I only have so many shots left.” At first none of us moved, but then I rose to my feet. The girls followed and we circled around to the west side of the cavern, then followed the edge of the cliff westward. In the dark, we couldn’t see anything around us for a while. I began to notice however that it wasn’t pitch black after all. I could see some scraggly weeds and brush growing out of the sandy, dusty ground we walked on. The ground held kind of a bleached quality in the light of the moon, which was only half seen.

The air was slightly musty tasting, but still fresher than what had been in the town. On shaky legs, we followed my father onward through the night. Eventually, my eyes began to feel all gritty, and it hurt more to close them than to keep them open. My throat stung with thirst, and my body shook with weakness. I fell to my knee on the ground, and my father pulled me to my feet. I shook my head and tried to speak, but all that came out was air.

“We need to keep going. We have to get further away from them.” Again I shook my head, my eyes sliding half closed. “Can’t,” I croaked. “You have to.” Nodding I sniffled and blinked my eyes a few times, then kept going. My world blurred in and out, but I kept going. Finally, the cliff ended in a gentle slope, where the mountain we had been following leveled out. We turned south to go around to the other side of the mountain. But they kept going. The sky had begun to lighten to grey and I could see further now. This was a whole range of mountains. The whole group of mountains huddled with scraggly brush in patches, looking like nothing so much as a gathering of homeless old men huddled together to keep warm against the cold harsh world. In shades of grey, brown and black, they were tragic versions of their previous lush and blooming selves.

Not of course that I had ever seen them in their glory days, that had been centuries before my time. But I had seen pictures of the things this world had once displayed. Rolling and arching spans of tall green grasses, full and bountiful bushes, regal trees, and spackled with beautiful flowers. Springs and creaks, rivers, oceans… This world had once been beautiful. Now it looked like a rumpled and aged picture, worn and faded to sepia tones.

Swallowing dryly, I continued to follow as my father led us along the base of the mountain, toward the distant edges of other mountains. I had no idea where we were going, but away from the destruction and horror in the cave we had fled from was good enough for me.

Eventually, I fell into a deep blackness that was sweet, warm, and embracing. I didn’t know anything, nor did I want to.

Now

I realized that the rain had stopped. Looking up from my poised pen, I glanced out the window. The sky was still somewhat grey, but the rain had ceased falling. Looking over my shoulder, I noticed that my companion sat on his bed against the wall, staring at something in his hand. Leaning further I tried to get a look at it, but he noticed that I had returned to the present and he quickly tucked it away into a pocket on his worn and pieced together shirt.

“Hey,” he said. “How’s the writing coming along?” I nodded. “Once the door is open, the time flows through it like purest water.” The statement made him smile. “A week ago I wouldn’t have understood that. Now though… The purest of water must truly flow freely.” His eyes glazed a moment, then he shook his head slowly as if reluctantly releasing the images behind his eyes.

“So you’re getting a lot out then?” I nodded.

Just then the door hanging to our little corner of privacy drew open and a face peered in. A small round face. A boy. He blinked deep brown eyes at us, his pale face wide open with the honest awe that only one so young could allow. Seeing that we had noticed him, he uttered a small squeak and ducked back out.  There were small whisperings outside, then a few other little faces timidly peeked beside the thick curtain. A few boys and girls stood watching us. Not for long though, as a male voice shooed them away, and we were left alone again.

Setting down my pen, I took a break from my writing and through the bars of our adjoining cells I gave my companion a writing lessen. A lot of our lessons were easy, others not so much. Ones that required learning what an actual object was were a little difficult for books that did not contain pictures. How did you explain what a football was like, to a person who’d never watched the sport? No one had actually played sports before the world ended, not in many years. But there had still been visual footage available of old games. And that was only one of many examples. I mean, even something as simple as fruits and vegetables were hard to really explain.

Reading, writing, math… Things such as that were a lot easier to teach. It was my hope that if enough people were taught some of the old ways, that people would not have such a hard time progressing. The most important lesson of all though, was to care. Teach people to care about the land around them, and that they could really make a difference.

Bright and early the next morning, the Missus came to see us. At first she didn’t say anything, then she turned to me. “You must come. We’ve gathered enough supplies. You must come with me.” My companion grasped the bars to his cell. “What are you going to do with him? What is it you want? We are simple travelers.” The woman smiled. “You are not simple travelers. He is of the Old World. If you wish to continue your journey, then he must contribute.” I nodded. “It’s ok. I know exactly what she wants. And I will give it freely, under a condition.” Her aged face showed marginal skepticism. “Oh?” I pointed to my companion. “He must be allowed to attend as well. It would make no sense whatsoever for me to be teaching two separate classes.” The mouth on my companion’s face dropped open. “Oh…” He stated.

The woman pursed her lips, eyes thoughtful. “Fine. He may attend.” She barely moved her hand in a sort of shooing motion, and a man entered the room as well, pulling out a key and opening the cell doors. Hesitantly, unbelievingly, my brown-haired friend stepped out of his cell. I followed the woman out of the little building, watching my friend look around in bafflement at the surroundings.

“All this time? It’s just been this little tiny hole? We could’ve easily gotten out of here. Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice was low, conspiratorial. I shrugged. “I was pretty sure this was what she wanted. I will not deny people the opportunity for education. I will teach these people what I can. Then we will leave.” He raised an eyebrow. “But it has taken you months to teach me what I’ve already learned, and you’ve still so much to teach. And what of your writing? Will you finish before you-” He choked up and looked away. I shook my head. “I needn’t teach them everything. If I can give them a pretty good basis, reading, writing and math, then they may learn the rest on their own. My story will be finished. I refuse to leave this earth before I’ve put it all on paper.”

The woman led me to another circling, where there was gathered a group of people. They ranged in age from about twelve to probably fortyish. People didn’t tend to live much further than that, which is why there weren’t any above that. The Missus being so old was entirely uncommon.

After placing me at the head of the class, she sat down at the edge of the gathering. Looking around at the eager faces, I felt a moment of fear. I’d finally reached a point where the things I knew were crucial to the future of many people. Then I wiped aside the feeling and took in the surroundings. The people were sitting in a rough half circle around me, some on pieces of rubble, others on the ground. Each had a flat hard surface, yellowed pieces of paper, and pens to write with. At the head, beside me, stood a piece of stone laid flat on top of some rubble. It was sturdy, and it held a few pieces of paper and a pen. A chair had been placed there for me to sit on.

Finally I spoke. “I am Cameron. I am from the Old World.” There was murmuring from the people around me. “Yes, it’s true. I am 84 years old.” More talk. “I was neither wise nor strong when the Old World ended. I was barely older than the youngest of those amongst you. A boy.” My eyes glazed over. Then I shook my head.

“I only had a modest education at that time, but over the years I have gathered much knowledge, and more wisdom. It is my hope to pass a little portion of that along to you before I’m on my way. The hope for the future lies in regaining some of our previous knowledge, supplemented with current wisdoms.”

Turning to my companion who had sat down near the Missus, I bid him rise again. “This is my travel companion, Alec. He has been with me on my journey for four months now. He knows much of what I have to teach you for the start, so he can answer some of your questions as well.”

Without further small talk, I began my lessons with these students. They were eager to learn, and had many questions. We stayed in class for quite a while. There was no real telling of time, but the way the sun moved across the sky, it was a little after mid-day when we broke for a meal. Food was brought to us by other people, along with water. While we were in this clearing, we did not receive pure water, but it was still much clearer than anything we’d drunk out of this city. We resumed our lessons after the meal, and ended for the day as the sun began to stroke the horizon. We were led back to our cells and left alone. After the man who had returned us to our jail had left, Alec turned to me. “He didn’t lock your cell. He locked mine but not yours. What is that about I wonder?” I shrugged. “Well likely they are sure you would try to leave if you were not locked in. Or it could be they know I will not leave here without you so they are not so concerned about myself. It could be a test of character too, to see if I would leave without you.”

Then

Groggily I opened my eyes. I had to blink a few times against the bright light around me. “Dad, he’s up.” Tara’s voice, quiet and full of aching sorrow. My father’s face seemed to float into view in front of me. “Son? Can you hear me, boy?” “Nhh,” I mumbled. Closing my eyes tightly, I swallowed harshly. The dryness of my throat caught me off guard, causing me to cough raggedly. A hand lifted my head up gently, and water flowed into my mouth soothingly. For a moment I drank greedily, then I made myself stop. Likely there wasn’t much water left in our supplies. The water left, and my head was slowly lowered back down. Breathing heavily, I opened my eyes again. My father was still hovering over me, concern plain on his strong face. His hair hung in ruffled locks, while his face showed the effects of being away from water and shaver for so long. His body and stance still bespoke strength and endurance, but his eyes were afraid. So much fear in those deep blue eyes.

My mother pushed in next to my father and asked if I was ok. I nodded and sat up slowly. The woman who had fled with us sat on a large rock a few feet away, holding her little boy close to her and stroking his hair lovingly. He was sucking on his thumb and staring at me with wide curious and frightened eyes. I smiled softly at him, letting him know I was ok.

Then I noticed it. We only had three packs. My father’s, mine, and my sister’s. The large food one was gone, as well as my mother’s. They must have been left in the hurry to scramble out of the campsite. But without the food supplies… We’d likely starve. I looked up at my father, but he glanced away through charred and barren rocks and heaps of rubble.

“Are we going to move on now?” My voice was weak and somewhat timid. He shook his head. “We shouldn’t move through the heat of day. We’ll wait till evening as it cools off some. For now we’ll wait here.”

We spent the day sitting or lying in the shade cast by the tall rocks around us. We seemed to be in a kind of canyon in the midst of the mountains. My father explained that this canyon reached all the way through the mountains, breaking only at the base of a small mountain better described as a hill. It had been formed during the bombing in the third world war, when a base camp had been hit almost incessantly for two days straight.

Finally the sun left our field of vision and we started off at a steady pace through the canyon. We stopped occasionally to rest or drink some water, mostly quiet as we put more and more distance between us and the horrors we had left behind. There were no signs we were being followed but every now and then my father would cast suspicious glances behind us and insist on taking the rear for a while, leaving me to lead us.

Finally, the canyon broke in a sharp climb to the base of the mountain in front of us. It was steep, but climbable. We made our way carefully to the top of the canyon, helping each other over or around rocks in the pile that lent us an exit.

Once on steady ground, I turned to look back. Dry cracked earth spread out around us, brownish grey in the diminishing sunlight. The canyon we’d followed spread along a large trail through the mountains like a great snake lying on the ground. I could not see the end of it. Truly, many people had died in this tragedy. I shook my head. “How could people hate each other so much as to want to cause this much destruction and heartache?” My father put his hand on my shoulder. “People didn’t hate each other, they just didn’t care. This battle was the turning point though. After the death and terror of seeing so many die in one spot, that was when the rebels made their minds up to stop this war.” He squeezed my shoulder gently, then let go and turned to walk on. “It is only a short distance to the town we are heading toward. If we keep going, we can reach there before it is too dark to see.”

We continued in silence, my father relieving the woman in carrying the boy. The child fell asleep in my father’s arms, head on his chest and arms dangling around his neck loosely. After a while, we could finally see the city he’d been leading us to.

It was a large dark patch on the horizon at first, a solid break in the barren landscape stretched out in all directions. Hunger pangs had been eating at my stomach forever, but I didn’t say anything. With any luck, the food stores there hadn’t been entirely raided and there’d be something we could eat.

As we drew nearer to the town, my father handed the boy back to the woman and brought the gun tin out. Withdrawing the gun, he loaded it and then made sure it was at the ready, concealing it in a deep pocket on his shirt.

Old, bent and neglected buildings greeted us as we came upon the town. The entire place was dark, empty and lifeless looking. I shuddered as a feeling crept across my back like ants walking a parade down my spine. My father nodded when he saw my face. “I think so too,” he said.

Cautiously we crept around the edges of buildings, looking for any sign of the food storage buildings. It felt as if the place had been abandoned for ages, but I kept feeling as if I was being watched. At long last, we found a building with the logo of World-Food on it; a planet earth with a grain shaft wrapped around it stem to tip.

The doors hung on broken hinges, and the inside of the building was dark and eerie. My father waved us to stay back while he stole closer. He pushed one of the doors aside a little more, causing it to screech angrily. After a pause, he stepped through the doorway. For the longest of minutes, there was no sound from within the tall dark building, but finally my father reappeared. “It’s safe, get in here,” he said, waving us through around him. Once we were in, he gently pushed the door back out a little.

My father led us to one side of the building. A few packing crates had been overturned and roughly pushed in a pile at the edge on the room. He asked me to help him move the one closest to us, and we jumped on either side of it atop the pile and pushed. The huge crate, easily the size of a car, rolled off the pile with groaning resistance. Moving this crate exposed a gash in the top edge of another, through which shone the plastic wrappings of food ration packages.

Hungrily, we reached in and grabbed packages, tearing them open and stuffing our mouths with the contents. We didn’t even bother or care to see what exactly we were eating, though we could taste that it was beef flavored. When we were full, we lay atop the crates in pleased relief. My father passed around a water sack and we all drank a small amount, to help our stomachs accept the food.

Now

A man entered the small jail building, moving to unlock Alec’s cell. “You are to teach another lesson,” he stated bluntly. He ushered us back to the ‘classroom’, where the students had been gathered and were waiting patiently. The sun had already crossed half the sky, but there was definitely still time for a lesson. I spent the remainder of the day trying to explain numbers and letters to this assembly of eager students. It was really something to be teaching again. Even better to have people who honestly wanted to learn what was taught.

As the sun passed below the land, we went back to our little hovel. This time, the man who returned us didn’t lock up the cell of my companion. With wide eyes he watched the man leave us alone. “They aren’t going to lock me up tonight?” I looked at him thoughtfully. I knew what thoughts must be racing through his head. He was thinking of the escape this opportunity warranted. I shook my head though. “We aren’t leaving. Not while I am needed. Once they have a basis, I’ll help them find some books, and they may teach themselves.” He stared at me. I could see he was torn. “But-but… We can leave! We can go. Why stay? Your journey must be completed. I need to know the things you do, so I can do well in this world.” Again I shook my head.

“Knowledge is not something that should be hoarded like the things scavenged amongst the ruins of who we were. It is to be gladly shared and spread with abandon. Keeping information and riches to oneself is how we got to where we are today. I will share a portion of my knowledge with these people, that they may be given a better chance at not only surviving, but living.”

My companion stuttered a few times, then grunted and lay back across his bed. As the darkness came on, I quizzed him in his arithmetic. He was slow to answer at first, but then he got into it. He loved knowing the answers to my questions.

Breathing deeply, I opened my eyes and glanced sleepily around the room. It was a gentle grey that only early morning’s light could offer. Rising up, I slid down to the edge of my bed and lifted my pen. I tried to put the tip of it on the yellowed paper before me, but I couldn’t make myself. The events I needed to record next still made me want to cry sometimes. I didn’t want to give them substance as of yet.

Sighing, I lowered the pen back down to lie flat on the table. I just couldn’t. Not yet. The memory was too painful. Rising to my feet, I made my way to the entrance of our little shelter. There was no one around that I could see, but I knew I was being watched. Leaning against the doorway, I stood gazing amongst the rubble around me. Swallowing thickly, I stepped out and shuffled slowly down the well-worn trail that led through the remnants of the Old World. I ended up weaving down a street, lined with half-standing buildings. There were meager signs of activity that showed that people were trying to eke out a survival. Some of the doorways were covered with thick hangings, while stones and rubble had been cleared or moved aside to allow easy passage.

I knew I was being followed, but made no attempt to hide or lose him. He was just doing as he was told, which showed a respect for chain of command. So I let him follow me as I made my way through the wreckage. Finally I reached my destination. My old house. The rubble that had been my parents’, and one day probably would have been mine.

I sat down on a boulder, staring at the ruin. I had been so sure I was leaving the other day, that the opportunity to see it again held me captive. I knew that being so entranced by this heap of crumbled walls, roof and ash was not productive, but I couldn’t help it. I could still remember taking a final look back at it, all those years ago, when life had taken a drastic turn for the terrible.

The front door had been left hanging open, a view at the walls within and the stairs leading up to the bedrooms on the second floor. The front of the house had been in somewhat bad shape, two windows giving it kind of a face-like appearance. A small walk had joined immediately with the street outside, while the yard had pretty much only existed in the back of the house. There were only four other families within a couple blocks. Most people had lived either to the south or north of our edge of town. I’d heard that many other people had lived on the other edge of town, but we never ventured far enough to know for sure.

Chicago, as this had once been called, had been a huge, sprawling metropolis, teaming with life. As large as it was, it had been one of the hardest hit cities when the plague had passed through. In rolling waves, the populace had been wiped out and rendered almost non-existent. What few had been left had moved to various other towns or cities in many directions. Some had stayed though, spread out in the vastly empty city.

After people had found out that entering the houses of people who had died of the plague was fatal, people stopped trying to move or occupy other houses. For fear that a house hadn’t been marked in the absence of proper management patrols, most houses had been left how they were. Nobody really socialized outside the protective boundaries of the Glass-COM network, so there wasn’t any more fear of getting the plague anymore.

Finally though I decided I’d better head back towards the city. They might start wondering where I was if the tracker didn’t report back soon. And if my traveling companion should wake and find me missing, he’d get worried.

As I neared the edge of the area that it seemed these people occupied, I could tell that my absence had been noticed. There was a worried hush about the place. I strode right to the clearing that had been designated as my classroom and sat at my makeshift desk writing letters and numbers on papers while I waited. Slowly the students trickled in. I knew that there were at least twice as many people within the unspoken boundaries of this gathering of people, so I wondered why there weren’t more in the class. Perhaps some of them didn’t care to learn, but I couldn’t believe that that many would choose to remain ignorant.

Finally the class was gathered and I passed out the papers I’d been writing up, showing them how to copy the markings to create their own letters and numbers. I spent the rest of the day teaching and answering questions. I was avoiding having to write up the next sequence of my story, but I just couldn’t do it yet.

After I had returned to my cell, my companion in tow, I lay on my bed and stared up at the cracked ceiling. I didn’t know how I would get past the piece of my story that I had next. It was one of the most horrible things I’d had to endure in my entire life. Worse than the world ending. For now I let sleep claim me.

Then

Screaming woke me. I jumped full upright, looking around in terror. The woman who had come with us was standing against a crate, her child in her arms. She was screaming and trying to back further towards the walls. Turning, I looked to see what she was trying to get away from. There were five men coming toward us, bearing torches and harsh jagged weapons. There was no way around them. They had us in the corner. My father tried to rush them, but they threw him on the floor and beat him with their weapons until he stopped moving.

I couldn’t move. They grabbed my mother next, and she kicked and screamed as he carried her out the door. I could still hear her screaming outside, as I watched the men approaching. Glancing back, I knew that after they killed me, they would do terrible things to Tara and the other woman, killing the other child as well.

Without thinking about what I was doing, I snatched up my father’s pack and pulled out the tin. Fumbling, I undid the clasp and pulled out the gun. One of the men took a step back as aimed it at them. My hand shook terribly. A couple of the men laughed at me. “What are you going to do with that thing, bruise us?” I was breathing quickly and I could hardly think. I pulled the trigger, and the man in front fell backward to the ground. The others looked at him in surprise, then turned to me in anger. Without pausing, I turned the gun on each of the other men and in fluid motion brought all of them to the ground. I stood staring at the men on the cold floor, not moving or making any noise, not breathing as blood pooled and flowed freely.

Then I remembered. Mother! I ran to the door and out into the street, looking in all directions. I couldn’t hear her anymore, but the last I’d heard of her was in the alley behind the warehouse. Running in that direction, I entered the alley, and immediately drew back against the wall. In the horror of the sight I beheld, I dropped to my knees in agony. Wrenching sobs tore through me. I won’t describe what I saw, except to say that only her clothes gave away the fact that it was my mother. After a few seconds, I forced myself to turn and go back to the front of the warehouse.

My sister was standing just inside the doorway, eyes furtively scanning the streets. I ducked through the door, startling her back a little. “Where’s mom?” She asked me in fear. “Where is she, what is it?” I shook my head, swallowing my head. “She’s gone, Tare.” That was all I could say. I went to my father’s side and sank down beside him. I put my head against his chest and listened. Vaguely, slowly, I could hear his heart beating. He was alive. Only barely though.

Rising back up to sitting, I stared at him in thought. I was too young to be left in charge. I couldn’t do things anywhere near as well as he could. I didn’t have even a fourth of the knowledge that he possessed.

I opened his bag and returned the gun to the tin, then pulled out the map. “What’s that, Cam?” My sister hovered over my shoulder. “It’s a map. It’ll tell us where we need to go.” “You mean how to find mom? We’re going to go look for her, aren’t we?” I drew my lips together and shook my head, swallowing firmly. “She’s not coming back, sis. She’s-“ my voice broke. “She’s dead.” My sister lurched away from me as if I’d been a snake and tried to bite her. “No. She’s not. She can’t be. Mom’s fine. She’s just fine. We have to find her. You can’t say things like that. We have to- we have to FIND her!” She took off running, toward the door.

Letting the paper’s I’d been holding scatter on the floor, I jumped to my feet and ran after her. “Tara, no! No! Tara!” I almost grabbed her as we reached the door, but she turned sharply and my hand snatched only air. I tripped over the sill and landed harshly on the ground. Quickly I pushed myself back to my feet and chased after her. I was too late though. A shrill scream of pure and absolute horror rose to the uncaring sky. Rounding the corner into the alley, I nearly ran into my sister. She was standing up against the corner of the food storage, her hands pressed firmly over her wide open mouth which still uttered harsh noises of pain and disgust.

I wrapped my arms around her and yanked her around to face me, pulling her tight to my chest. She didn’t make any movements, just kept screeching. Then her whole body went limp and I barely caught her weight. Tilting her sideways, I saw that her eyes were closed tightly. She’d passed out.

I lowered her to the ground and got a better grasp on her, then lifted her up and carried her back around into the warehouse. My arms shook with the strain of her weight on my relatively small frame. But I didn’t let her fall. The woman who was left at the back of the room helped put Tara on top of a crate. I sat down then and put my head in my hands.

I couldn’t think straight, and tears were falling again. The woman sat beside me and put her arms around me. The little boy came over to me and threw his little arms around my shoulders too, his big eyes full of sadness.

Finally I waved them away and stood up. I needed to get everything sorted out. Firstly, I couldn’t just leave her like that. All bloodied and- and… I rose to my feet and turned to the woman. “You stay here with them. I’ll be back.” I grabbed my father’s lighter and went back outside. In the alley, I piled up as much debris as I could, up against the other building. Once I had made the pile impressively large, I clenched my chest muscles and made myself walk over to my mother. Carefully and with struggle, I pulled her over to the pile I’d made. Once I had put her on it, I stood there for a few moments. I straightened her hair, then used a scrap piece of cloth to wipe her face. Sniffling a few times and blinking back tears, I couldn’t seem to make myself do what I needed to do.

Finally though, it couldn’t be put off any longer. I used my father’s lighter to set fire to the pile of debris. Turning, I didn’t stay to watch her burn. I couldn’t bear that much horror. Trudging across the dirty, dusty ground, I entered the warehouse again. My sister was still out, lying on the crate. The woman was poking around at my father, and glanced up at me. “His injuries are bad, but I think he’s going to be ok.” I nodded. “I think its best if we leave here as soon as possible. I’m going to go through my father’s things, he said there were directions for building a cart.”

Without explaining, I sat down with the booklet of papers my father had handed me so long ago in the school building, in reality only a few days ago. I came across some sketches of what I would assume was the cart. After looking at it, I left the building and began gathering the things I needed. Bicycle wheels from bikes so old that the rubber had all been rotted away, metal poles, plasti-boards from fallen down houses, and some nails and wires. I had the woman and the eager little boy help me, and a few hours later we’d finished. The ramshackle cart didn’t look as nice as the pictures my great grandfather had made, but it was sturdy. It wouldn’t sway or buckle. With some effort, we placed first my father, then my sister atop the cart lying across its width. At the back end of the cart, we had built a sort of box, where we put as many food and water pouches as we could, even over the top of it. The woman put the boy on the cart, then me and the woman took hold of a bar we had place in front of the cart, held with brackets about two feet from the cart, and began walking. Getting it rolling was really hard and took a lot of effort, but finally, we got it going. It would have been easier if the rubber on the wheels  had still been good, but it was still easier than carrying all that weight ourselves. According to the map, there was another city marked on the map just to the southeast of where we were now.

The fire behind the warehouse still burned, and seemed to have spread to the building I had stacked the debris pile against, as the whole area back there was sending up billowing black clouds of smoke toward the just lightening sky. It was going to be a harsh day, walking in the full sun, but we dared not stay any longer. The man who’d killed my mother was still there, and who knew how many other people.

Now

I reached up and wiped tears from both my eyes. I hadn’t allowed myself to think on this memory in so long, nor had I allowed any tears to take full form in ages. I couldn’t hide a sob that lurched out of my throat. Forcing myself to breathe deeply, I clutched at the tightness in my chest. My stiff fingers shook slightly and I could feel my blood running cold in my veins.

A hand on my shoulder startled so that I half turned in my seat. Through blurry eyes I could not at first made out the person who stood at my shoulders. “Sir? Sir! Are you alright? Is it your heart? What’s wrong?” I shook my head, wheezing at first. “No, no dear Alec. This moment owes nothing to physical ailment. A memory, long withheld from my thoughts, was brought to fore with the need to record it.” I took strength from his steady hand, so gently laid upon my shoulder.

Finally the shaking left as I once again pushed the memory from my mind. I restacked the papers across my desk and stood. “Come. Let’s walk a while.” Slowly my companion followed me outside. I went the opposite direction from the way I’d gone before, heading toward the tall regal house that the Missus had been in.

Our walk brought us through some roughshod lean-tos and other types of shelters, where various people were going about different tasks and errands. There didn’t seem to be much in the way of social structure, as far as who was in charge of what, or who was above someone else. Yet no one squabbled over who would do what, live where, or what was whose.

After a long while, a man approached us to tell us that we were wanted to teach another lesson. We made our way back to the makeshift classroom. The remainder of the day was spent teaching the same group of persons we’d been teaching for the last few days.

Then

Once we had gotten out of town, there hadn’t been a road to pull our cart on. The going had been slow and somewhat painful. About an hour later however, as the city we’d left was beginning to disappear from the horizon, Tara had woken. She insisted on walking, which made the going a little easier. She also carried one of the backpacks, though that hadn’t made too much of a difference.

The walk had been long and arduous, but at long last we reached the town. The sight out front was disheartening. There was a huge sign that said the entire town had been condemned of the plague. I stared at the sign, my heart in my throat. There was no way we were going back to that town. No way whatsoever. Not ever. Opening my bag I pulled out the map again. It looked like there was another town to the west of us, and one to the east. The one to the west however was over a bridge. I knew from the internet that there were very few bridges remaining that were usable. So I knew that we had to go east. We had enough food and water to make it, but it was going to be a few days journey.

Taking my place once more at the bar, we struggled to turn the makeshift cart eastward. The wheels sank into the dusty dirt, and we kept on walking. As we got hungry, thirsty, tired, or needed to relieve ourselves, we stopped to rest.

At night, we only slept a few hours then kept going. Sometimes the boy or my sister would walk, and they tried to keep it so that both of them weren’t on it at the same time. My father woke once, but he wasn’t coherent when he did. Within minutes, he had shut his eyes again and resumed the thick breathing of lost consciousness. When he did so, my sister gave me a worried look. “It’s ok,” I told her. “He’s going to be ok. He just needs to keep resting, till he heals more. She didn’t answer me, just kept plodding along in shuffling steps through the deep dirt.

When the sun had been in the sky a few hours and we couldn’t bear to move any further, we stopped. I pulled out the journal my father had handed me, which his grandfather had filled with beautiful scrawling writing. Opening it, I began to read. The accounting began when the man had been a boy. As I was right now. It started with his name, Jameson Reed. Back then there had still been last names. People stopped using last names after the plague because too many had died for it to matter. A lot of the survivors had been children, though some had been single people out of whole families. And in most cases, whole families had perished. For a whole generation, some people had retained usage of their last names, but once that era had passed, the remaining population waved away its usage.

The journal was pretty sketchy for the first few years, leading quickly to the plague. The plague had happened when he had been seventeen, and he had watched as the people around him that he loved grew sick and died in rapid succession. Before long it had only been him. He had stayed huddled in a small shack for two months, venturing out only long enough to gather food and water for himself, or debris to start a fire. He never saw anyone else; if they were alive they had stayed hidden when he went by.

I closed the book and rested my head on the back sack, closing my eyes in sleep.

When I woke, the sun had moved enough to bring us out of the shadow we had found behind some great hulking wreckage we had stopped behind. Rising to my feet, I roused the others and we moved our wagon far into the shade to get some more rest before the evening tapered off to a coolness we could tolerate to walk in. Being in the shade once more and cool enough for my head to stop spinning, I doled out some food and water to the others.

Just as I’d finished my own share, my father moaned softly and turned his head a little to one side, then the other. Jumping to my feet, I pulled myself up onto the cart beside him. His eyes were open, blinking rapidly. “Dad? Are you ok? Dad?” He saw me above him and faintly tried to reach up to me, resting his hand on my arm when he couldn’t reach higher. “Cam,” he managed weakly. “Cam, your mother and sister, where are they? Are they safe? Are they ok?” I shook my head and choked up. “Mom-” my voice broke. Clearing my throat I drew in a deep breath and tried again. “Mom is gone. Tara’s ok. But mom’s- she’s gone, dad.”

He looked at me for a moment, uncomprehending. Then his eyes widened. “Mary? Mary is dead?” Tara began crying. I nodded, feeling tears trickle down my own cheeks. “Yeah. The men who had us cornered. They took her and- She’s dead. I burned her body. There’s nothing left by now. That was day before yesterday. We’re miles away.”

Turning his head, my father closed his eyes. I could see by his breathing that he was out again. Sighing, I turned and sat on the edge of the cart, feet dangling over the edge. “He’s asleep again,” I said. The others sat back down.

When evening had come, we packed up and kept moving. Tara insisted on helping us pull it for a while as we continued onward in the coming gloom. As the day faded away, the sliver of a moon did little to light the way. Finally, Tara grabbed up a scrap of wood as we passed by what might have been a stand of trees long ago. Tying a small strip of cloth around it, she lit it up and we used the torch to light the way. The coolness of the dark was refreshing after the heat of the day.

The boy ended up on the cart and sound asleep. As the light returned to the earth, we began looking for a place to stop for the middle of the day. My arms were so tired, and ached so much, I feared they’d fall off. I could tell by looking at her that the woman beside me was at the same point. Tara doused her torch in the sandy dirt and put it on the cart, then insisted on stepping in once more to help us.

As the day’s heat began to really settle in, I realized there would be no shade for our mid-day rest. There was simply nothing in all the miles we could see around us. “Let’s keep going until we cannot,” I said. The girls neither argued nor stopped pushing the cart.

At long last, Tara shook her head. Gasping raggedly she tried to speak. When she couldn’t force any words out, I nodded. “Yes. Let’s stop for the day. We need to get father and your boy underneath the cart.” Wordlessly the two girls helped me haul father and the boy off the cart and drag them underneath it. Taking some water and food with us, we all huddled underneath it to avoid the sun. The way the cart was built, all jacked up, it was tall enough that we could almost sit under it. If we slouched greatly we could. After eating, we laid down to sleep. No one would come at us here in the middle of nowhere with no shade around us. The promise of hiding under this small cart until the heat had subsided wasn’t tempting enough I figured for someone to risk everything running out here to attempt to gain.

Now

I looked up from my papers and was surprised to see the Missus sitting in the room with us. Her back tall against the cold wall, she was simply watching me. Seeing that I’d noticed her, she spoke. “What is it you write that takes up so many of your hours?” For a moment I didn’t answer, then I laid down my pen across the yellow paper and turned enough to really see her.

“I write of what was. What has been.” She angled her head a little, giving the impression that she hadn’t properly understood. “I am writing down an according of time. Mostly during the End as yet, though I’ve much more to record. I am leaving something for the next generations to understand better what has happened.” She nodded, lips pursed in thought. “Why do you not simply tell it to people?” I shook my head, a small smile on my lips. “I write it so it will go beyond the generations that strive today. If I tell it to a boy today, his words will twist it, and the words of those who hear him will bend it further. This way, the words are laid out in the order and meaning I’ve intended, and there will be no blurring of the facts.” Again she nodded. “I see,” she said.

Sitting back against my wall, I looked at her and waited. She must have another reason for having come here, other than to watch me write. There was a long moment of silence, then she stood and motioned for me to follow her. She took me out of the building and we walked towards her house. At first she was silent, but then she spoke. “I would like you to teach me what happened.” Confused I looked at her. “You said you are of the Old world.” She nodded. “And rightly. I am. However, I was young, and I was not connected. My father died in the riots and I-.” She stopped speaking for a moment, only pushing on when the silence had grown strong. “I was taken by a group of them. For years I knew nothing but life in that group. Then one day they went on a raiding party and simply never came back. Me and about twelve others waited there for a couple days, before we made good our escape.

“I’ve heard many stories and theories, but you are of the Old World. You are old enough too to really know what happened.” She gave me an expectant glance as we made our way through the streets of rubble. I hadn’t noticed it but we had taken a turn and were headed away from the main area these people had claimed as a sort of home.

I nodded and began speaking. I told her of the third world war, and the plague. I told her how the Glass-COM system had crashed, taking all of society with it. I told her of the riots, though I’m sure she remembered that part. I told her what I had learned since then about that fateful event. How different people had told the men in power that the fall was likely to happen, and they even knew roughly when. But no one did anything about it. Fixing the problem would have been too expensive, and there weren’t enough people left to put it in a tax.

There even had been ways to solve the water problems, and the food problems, but no one wanted to lose money, it was too precious. The future generations learned from the examples set by the elders, and decided that there was nothing they could do about it, and it wasn’t even their problem. The people who could have done something got so used to being handed everything they needed, that they didn’t try to change anything. Food and water was really cheap if you got the bottom of the barrel, and the synthetic things china pumped out. Lawn care and home upkeep was abandoned when people stopped socializing outside of the home after the plague fear.

And so people sat back and turned their faces, letting the world crumble around them just so that no one would have to put a lot of time, money or effort into trying to make the world a better place for their future generations to live in. I mean hey, if the world isn’t going to improve drastically in your time without using up so much money and energy, why bother?

After I’d finished speaking she stayed silent for a time. At last though she nodded slowly. “So it was mankind’s fault after all, it just wasn’t a direct attack. It was actually negligence, not intention.” We continued in silence, both of us thoughtful. The past generations had been entirely self-absorbed, leaving us to suffer for and clean up after their outright arrogance.

Then

I sat up straight, allowing the book I’d been holding to fall to the dusty ground. The others looked at me in worried confusion, but I couldn’t say anything. I stared into the hot, warped looking surroundings, seeing nothing. The shock of what I had read was so great that it left my mind totally blank.

At long last I spoke. “A lie. It was all a lie. Everything.” Tara’s eyebrows drew together in greater confusion. “What are you talking about, Cam?” I shook my head, then picked up the book again and dusted off the cover and sheets. “All of it. The plague.” The woman sat up straighter. “The plague was a lie? Too many people died for the plague to be a lie.” Again I shook my head.

“No, not the presence of it. The lie was that they didn’t know where it came from.” The woman shook her head. “What are you talking about?” I indicated the pages of the worn book in my hand. “Right here. He took a journey to D.C., where he managed to get his way into one of the main scientific research facilities. He got a man who worked there to talk. He said that the plague had been a huge mistake by a disease control facility. It was supposed to be a vaccine against AIDS, whatever that is. It was administered to all people who were supposed to have or be susceptible to this ‘AIDS’ disease. And they all died. Not just a percentage, all of them died. In the tests against animals, not a one had died. It was only after the people had died, that they found out why they died. The vaccine had been an accelerator, not an inhibitor. It only worked on the animals because the addition of AIDS in their system had been synthetic, so the vaccine had targeted the animal’s normal systems, allowing the body to fight the disease better. But the people who received it had been living with the disease forever.

“After the initial round of deaths, the vaccine changed into a contagion, and many other people died too. The person who told him all this said that all they could do after that was study the residual effects of the ‘plague’. The main goal was to find out the lifespan of it. Many people died in trying to find a cure for it. Anyone who got a good look at it, died. It was uncontainable. Only distance kept it from spreading.” I hesitated for a moment, then continued.

“The person who spoke said that he was the only one who had managed to look at the plague under the microscope and live. He had managed to find the places in its makeup where it changed. He compared the final product with the initial mixture that had been created. By doing that, he was able to create an antidote, which he had given to himself, and that was why he was still alive. He had a chance to give it to the population, but he was denied funding by the government. The decision to withhold the cure from the people had been made for two reasons. One, even with less people to cure, it would be extremely expensive to create enough for some of the people, let alone everyone. And secondly, with less people around, the government had more money. They had taken all of the money left by the people who had died without wills or heirs. And they liked this kind of new rolling in the dough. They had bought up or inherited all of the world’s businesses and resources. They owned the whole monopoly. And they liked it that way. No more paying for anything, only earning interest off of it.”

I shook my head again. “If it wasn’t for their greed, there would have been probably twice as many survivors. They LET the people die, so they could own the world.” Tara shook her head. “No. No they wouldn’t do that. Nobody lived to make a cure. That book is a lie.” “Tare, it’s not a lie. Great-granddad took the cure himself. The doctor had used all of his own income and savings to create a large amount of the cure, which he had administered to all the people he could. And then, he had found a way to trick china into making the cure and putting it into all the food they shipped out. He had taken all the ingredients and spread them out, then complied them in a different order with other things, where-by he created a new type of synthetic food. This was so popular, and cheap for china to make, it didn’t take much convincing. They started pumping out the cure, packaged as average food. It wasn’t baseline food though, so a lot of people still didn’t get it. It also wasn’t top of the line food, and for sure it wasn’t real food, so a lot of the rich people didn’t get it either. However, the rich don’t slum anymore, so a lot of them didn’t die from the plague anymore once quarantine took effect.”

I looked at the others. “We are immune to the plague. All of us. We aren’t on baseline food, our rations are middle-ground.” I looked at the woman. She nodded. “Ours were too. And even so, we’ve been eating middle-ground rations for the last few days.” I nodded. “We’re immune, and we know it. That gives us a whole new section of opportunity that no one else has. We can go in the quarantined cities with no fear.”

My heart leapt with joy. The woman looked at her son, who was still sleeping soundly. “He has a chance then. A chance to survive.” I nodded. “We all do. We can avoid all the people out there who would kill us.”

I closed the book again, and picked up one of the ration packages. I had a whole new respect for these pouches of mostly bland and texture-absent food that had been rationed to those of us who could not afford real food. In a way, not being rich had saved our lives. That was why we could go into the quarantined school building. People may really have died there, and granddad had lied to my father. It may even have been his way of testing the cure… Which was not actually such a positive thought. I cringed. Tara raised her eyebrows, but I just shook my head and handed her the food ration and grabbed one for myself.

The heat of the day was almost diminished enough for us to move on, and soon we would continue our trek across the empty land around us. Now I was filled with hope, though. Hope for safety. If the city was quarantined, then it would likely be empty. As far as anyone knew, people were still susceptible to the plague. No one would dare enter a condemned town.

We had been walking for hours when we finally noticed the darker outlines of buildings against the dark night sky. We were almost there. If we pushed hard, we could make it before the heat of the coming day, but a glance at the others and my own beating heart told me it wouldn’t happen. We couldn’t go any faster than we were, and we were likely to only slow down as we went along.

But the sight of the city made my heart soar. We might finally be headed to a place where we could stop walking; where we could rest for longer than the night’s length. We were all something of a ragged sight, the four of us. I couldn’t see much in the bare light from the torch Tara carried, but we were all dusty and slumping, with hair matted from dried sweat.

We were still a fair distance from the city when the sun had reached the point we could no longer tolerate it. Finally we once again stopped the cart at an advantage from the sun, placing my father underneath it and then crowding in ourselves.

Again I read some of the book, but there wasn’t anything else interesting as what I’d read the day before in the few pages I managed to read before exhaustion found me curled up and fast asleep.

Now

I startled when the door-covering to the little jail house opened. For the most part I’d been left alone the last two days. I wrote in the mornings, and taught in the evenings. These people were eager to learn, and easy to teach. Already I’d taught them more than I had expected to be able to in such a short time.

A small face peered around the edge of the doorway. I saw that it was the same face that had carefully looked in on us before. Drops of water ran off his dark brown hair, trailing his dirty pale cheeks before wetting his clothes. He reminded me instantly of the little boy who had accompanied me at the beginning of my journey, so many years before. With a smile I turned to him. “Come, boy. Come in out of the rain.” He stepped in and shook his head, making the water splatter the walls around him.

“Mother says the water that falls is Life-Water. Why do you call it rain?” His small voice was full of excitement and curiosity. Again I smiled. What a charming boy. “Well, rain is what we called it in the Old World. It is simply a word we used to describe it. And what are you doing out there, soaking yourself through?” He shrugged. “I dunno. I wanted to find something fun. Do you have anything fun? Why do you make the marks on the paper? Is it fun?” I nodded. “It is. I am making these marks, because they tell a story.” He came over, his big eyes wide. He looked at the paper, then wrinkled his forehead and nose. “I don’t see a story. Just funny marks. No pictures.” I laughed. “No, not pictures, you’re right. These are words. Someday, everyone will be able to read them again, I hope. Then the people will know what story I’ve written for them.” He looked at me. “How did you get to be so old?” I laughed. “I got to be old because I asked questions, and found answers. Because I had friends, and family, and because I helped others.”

The little boy cocked his head a little to one side. “Why would you help others? Did they help you first?” I shrugged. “Not always, no. And sometimes, they didn’t help me back.” The boy’s eyes widened again. “But didn’t that make you mad? How could you help someone, if they weren’t going to give you something back?” I looked at him a long time. “Because sometimes, helping them without getting something felt just as good as if I did get something. Because it made them happy, or kept them alive, or even helped them to have a better life. I’ve lost much in my time, but I have more to say for my accomplishments than most people ever will.”

The brown-haired boy looked at me for a moment, then shook his head. “I guess someday maybe I will understand that. I better go before my mom wonders where I’ve gone.” He waved a little hand at me and then ducked back out into the rain. I sighed after he’d gone. That little boy had just put into words the main reason it was so important for me to write down my accounting. People were still stuck in the self-centered delusion that it was someone else’s responsibility to help you, and solve all your problems for you.

It was only then that I really acknowledged the absence of my companion. He had been hanging around with a few of the men from this group of people, showing them a few of the things that I had taught him about building and putting things together, the things that were worth salvaging, or what was a waste of time. It made my heart glow to see how I’d influenced him, and how well I’d taught him. It also pointed out how many things I still needed to teach, and the things I never would be able to. After all, even my knowledge was limited. I had read a good many books, on many different topics, but no one knows everything.

Shaking my head, I turned back to my table-top and once again allowed myself to be immersed in memory of all those long decades ago.

Then

As the setting sun allowed the ground some cool relief, we straggled out from under the cart, returned my father to the top of it, and once again set out for the city in the near distance. The ground was harder packed here than it had been further out in the desert, and the going was easier as the rims of our makeshift cart weren’t sinking deep into the shifting dusty sand.

I noticed that some small patches of weeds was trying wholeheartedly to grow at the edges of the buildings where some shade was probably found in the daytime. It was kind of interesting to see anything growing all one its own, when I was sure there were no plants anywhere other than rich houses and businesses.

As we drew close to the city, a sign out front proclaimed that the city had been condemned from the plague. I breathed a sigh of relief. Entering the city, we began looking for a building where we could lie low for a while. I didn’t want it to be right on the edges, where our presence might be noticed, but I wanted it to be close enough for a hasty departure in case we were forced to suddenly flee again.

Finally we found a house that wasn’t entirely ruined, the four outer walls and roof still standing. It had obviously been well maintained before the plague had left it ownerless. I tried not to think about the fact that we were going to inhabit a home where someone had died. There was a notice on the front door, aged and yellowed. It had a notice on it that the home had been under quarantine. That made me feel a little better, The person had obviously died outside of their home.

Me and the woman carried my father by knees and chest through the door of the house, where we found a couch in a living room. We carefully set him down on it, and the couch gave a soft groan. The thing hadn’t been used in about a hundred years. Once we had all of our things in, we went and pulled the cart out behind the house, so that if anyone else happened by the town, they wouldn’t see the cart and realize that someone was living there. Entering the house once more, we explored our little hovel. The house had three bedrooms, the beds still made up. There was a small kitchen, and the living room. There were two bathrooms, one to each floor. All the paint had peeled off the walls, which were a grey absence of color. Most of the flooring was still intact, though the colors had faded to browns or greys. You could still see diamond shapes on the kitchen floor linoleum.

Curtains still hung on all the windows, faded to yellow. They seemed as though to touch them would cause them to fall apart, so we left them drawn shut. That was better anyway, to keep the day’s heat out and hide us better from possible eyes.

Finally, with nothing else to do, we all separated into the bedrooms and went to sleep. I shared a room with Tara, and the boy slept with his mother. It was kind of nice to be able to sleep at night for a change. I was so exhausted by the time I was laid out that I fell asleep almost immediately.

Sunlight glinted harshly into my face, bolting me upright. Relief coursed through me when I saw that it was just a figurine abandoned on a shelf. Very little decorated the room. A few figurines, a book on one shelf, and an old tattered and faded poster on the wall. The room appeared to have been decorated for a preteen boy, the vaguest hint of blue to the walls, and what had probably been a cream colored carpet.

A loud thud from downstairs woke up Tara and the two of us took off down the stairs. Father was lying on the floor, in the process of pushing himself back up. Looking over the back of the couch at us, he shook his head to clear it. As he looked around at the house, his face fell. He must have thought we were back home.

“Son? Where are we? What’s happened?” I helped him to get back onto the couch, sitting beside him. “We are in Gary, Indiana. It’s been a couple days since you were hurt.” He seemed a little confused. “But how did we get here? Especially in such a short time, with me unconscious?” I gave a half smile. “We built a cart from the directions that great granddad left you. Then we pulled you here. Me, Tara, Laura and her boy Tem.” His brow furrowed. Then his expression widened in memory. “And Mary-Your mother. Is she really…” I nodded, swallowing hard a few times to avoid the grief that threatened to overcome me. Father closed his eyes, a few tears sliding out anyway.

Finally he stood and cleared his throat. “Well, now we need to figure out a plan. We need to find somewhere safe to hole up, where we can’t be reached by anyone. Who knows how long all this will be like a horror story.” I shook my head. “Father, we are in the safest place there is, for the meantime. Until or unless young children wander through, we should be left alone.” My father turned to study me. “What makes you so certain no one will come by here? Even if there is no one else in this town, roving groups of people could still come back through.” Again I shook my head. “No father. The town is condemned of the plague.”

My father outright stared at me. Before his face could get any madder, I rushed to explain. “I’ve been reading great granddad’s journal. He said he met a man who told him the real story behind the plague. The one only government intertwined persons would know. There was a cure invented, but the government wouldn’t fund it because they greedily wanted to save themselves some money, So the creator went and changed it just the slightest bit, and sold it to china as a new food additive.” I held up a ration package from the corner we’d put them in. “We’ve been receiving doses of an antidote for almost fifty years now.”

He shook his head, backing up a step. “That’s not true. It couldn’t be. My parents died of the plague. Thirty two years ago.” I didn’t know what to say. “Granddad wouldn’t lie. Not in his journal. It’s true, we’ve been getting the cure. We’ve been in this town overnight already, and none of us are ill.” Dad threw his hands up. “Yeah, it can take up to a month for the plague to show up. It wouldn’t matter if we’d been here a month and not gotten it.”

Looking to the floor, I shrugged slightly. “You weren’t around to make the decisions. I had to bring us somewhere safe. We almost all died father. I had to- I had to SHOOT people, father. I had to take care of mother when she died.” I choked on the last half of that sentence. “I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you, more so if I’ve gotten us killed.” I looked up at him. “I needed some direction, some help, and great granddad’s words were there. You believed in him so much for everything else, what makes this so hard to believe?”

I stalked off up the stairs and closed myself in the bedroom I’d chosen. Breathing deeply I tried to calm myself. My whole body still ached from the long and arduous journey we’d had. I heard the door down the hall open, and the woman went downstairs. I could hear voices in the living room but not what the topic was. I didn’t really care though. I laid myself out on the bed, hands tucked beneath my head. I didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything. I wanted to spend the whole day, maybe even a few whole days, lying right here on this bed. No walking, running, or even moving.

No one bothered me for some time, then Tara came up and called in that we were going to eat if I wanted to join them. At first I didn’t answer, but then I grunted softly and dragged my weary body off the bed and down the stairs after Tara. The others had found some chairs and dragged them into the living room, where my father sat on one and Laura on the other. The boy was seated on the couch, and me and Tara were gestured to join him. After we had eaten and drunk some, my father turned to all of us. “I’d like to explain the gravity of our current situation, then we’ll make a decision. I just want to make sure that everyone understands.

“The plague was a terrible thing. Many billions of people died. No one was exempt. It was almost as if the plague knew the human DNA and was perfectly formulated for killing humans. It didn’t matter who you were or what you did. Once you had the plague, you died. A few times they managed to get cases of people who had it and study them. More often than not the people who were studying the disease died as well.

“There’s a fair chance that, by entering this house, we’ve managed to get the plague ourselves. Cameron says that we are immune to it, and there is a slight possibility. It is a great risk to take. So the decision really, is whether we’d like to stay, risking a high chance that we will die, or leave here and look for somewhere else, where the plague might not be, or people who might kill us. Let’s hear your thoughts.” At first no one said anything, but then Tara spoke up. “I want to believe Cam. I think that we should stay here.” Laura spoke next. “I’d rather stay here and die of the plague if it’s not true than leave here and for sure die at the hands of ruthless men.” The boy shook his head. “I’m tired of going. I just want to not go anymore.” My father looked at me. “I think great granddad knew what he was talking about. I think he really did talk to that man, and that there really was a cure added to all our food. I’m not leaving here for a while. We all need to rest. To go from a relatively laid back lifestyle to all this walking and running, waking up terrified cause we’re not sure someone hadn’t tried to kill us in our sleep… I think we all just need to rebuild our strength again.”

Looking at the floor, my father slowly nodded. “I guess that we have been here so long now that if we were going to die from it, leaving now wouldn’t make a difference. We’ll stay here then.”

And so we ate our food, drank some water, and relaxed. Nerves still twitched and the urge to run still came over us sometimes, but we were all glad for the opportunity to rest.

For about two months, we stayed in that house. We didn’t do much, other than exploring the town. We found clothing and shoes and traded out for them. We also found some ration crates in a ware house. They hadn’t been touched in ages. Additives in the rations made it so the food was still edible for many years. According to documents we’d found, the town had been condemned for about twenty years. It had been gradual at first, a few houses here and there, and then the whole town. The armed services had been called in to blockade the city, as with any other town that was under quarantine. People who tried too hard to leave had been shot on sight. A few bodies still lay on the edges of town, mostly only skeletons left.

Finally, we felt it was time to go out and figure out what to do. What had happened to the world while we hid from it. We packed up the cart with as much food and water rations as we could, donned some ‘fresh’ clothes, and began the trek out of town. We had decided that traveling east was the best thing we could do, since we were already kind of headed that way. We would go to D.C. and find out what the people in power were doing about this situation. We had found a map of all the states in an abandoned car, so we had a fair idea of the way to go.

Without my father riding on the cart, it was much easier to push it, especially since now he could help. We took turns, sometimes pushing it from behind, sometimes pulling it by the pull bar. We followed the road out of town, which made it even easier to move the cart. The road was mostly straight, but every now and then it took turns or curves, sometimes slicing through hills, other times climbing them. Some of the cities on the maps had x’s on them, and my father explained that it meant the city had been condemned.

There were two small towns between us and the next one with an x on it. My father pointed out small side roads that led around them. We could take those side roads, and most likely remain safe. The going was still somewhat slow, and as the day progressed it got slower and slower. When the sun had set, we lit a torch and kept going. Here there were great forests of dead trees, some of them blackened and sooty, others white and lifeless. It seemed like a great field of death.

Over the course of two days, we went around both of the towns that were not condemned, and we could see even from a distance that both of them had been thoroughly destroyed. All the buildings were in burned heaps. In the first town there was no trace of life, while the other one held a large group of persons around a bonfire, their actions mercifully hidden by the distance between us.

Finally we reached Nappanee. Even from a distance we could see the huge white sign that proclaimed the place condemned. As far as I was concerned, that was like any other welcome sign. It meant hope, and safety. We didn’t hesitate to haul our cart to it, once more finding a house we could settle in. After two days of hauling, and almost sleepless nights of fear that we would be caught by some of the overwhelming people, it was nice to once again be enveloped in safety.

We decided to stay there for a while, and enjoy the peace of being passed over by those who didn’t know that the plague was no longer a fear. So we unloaded our things and made the house we’d found into our own for the time being.

Now

Time seemed to be flying by. I hadn’t really paid a lot of attention, other than to keep track of the days. I felt it was important for time to still mean something, so one day we could once more have some amount of measure to our time. I finally decided I needed to ask the Missus how long she intended for us to stay here amongst them.

Putting my pen down, I rose and left my little building, following the paths that led to the house. Small droplets of water landed on my shirt, slowly soaking me through as I made my way to her house. At long last I reached the doorway of the building, pushing back the clothe cover. A man stood just inside the doorway, and his eyes kept steady track of my progress as I entered the hall. Without pausing, I followed the hall and series of rooms I’d been led through previously.

Finally I reached the room where the Missus had been before. The man who had followed me put a hand to my chest to stop me, looking in my eyes to emphasize his request to wait. The man went through the door covering, and then a minute later came back out. He waved for me to enter, standing tall against the wall with his hands clasped loosely in front of him.

Pushing aside the door covering, I carefully went through the doorway. The woman was seated at the window box, hands carefully folded in her lap. She glanced at me as I entered, then returned to looking out the window. “Why does it rain so much? Did it rain as this in the Old World?” I shook my head. “No. It hardly ever rained. My father told me this might happen though, and the books I’ve read confirmed it. The extreme heat caused water to turn into steam. All that steam gathered together as clouds, and now it rains. The water is being redistributed to the land. Someday, all the green of the land may be returned. If people let it. When there was mass logging back before the third world war, much of the land was left desolate. Since there was no shade, there was nothing to keep the sun from scorching the land. As a result, everything green and growing died. The only plants grew in business and upper class yards or off on islands. At least as far as anyone knew.”

She nodded, still looking out the window. Finally she spoke. “I know why you’re here. You’d like to know my plans for you.” I didn’t answer her. “I want you to stay, only as long as you are okay with still being here. We need as much of your teaching as you can spare, but I won’t interfere with your eventual plans. You companion has told me of your journey, and your intentions. Please don’t think that I intend to keep you here for the rest of your life. If you could just share with us for another few weeks, I would be happy to bid you good journey.” I nodded, thoughtful. “Yes,” I finally said. “I could stay for another few weeks. I do have a couple questions for you though.

“First of all, why am I teaching such a small handful of people, out of so many?” She smiled. “I intend to have them teach the others. I knew it would likely take you longer to teach them if you had to teach many more than what you have. Once you have taught them what you know, and you go on your way, I’ll have them help me teach. They are each from different areas of this city, and they can spread the knowledge far and wide.”

I nodded. “Okay. My other curiosity is how you get the pure water?” At this she grinned. “I’ll show you. It is our greatest accomplishment.” She rose to her feet and bid me to follow her. She led me out of the room and out a back door on the large house. Behind the house was a large yard, where almost green grass grew. A series of tables and other surfaces held bottles, tubes, small vials and hoses. Above all this, a large satellite dish had been mounted, a funnel and hose hooked up to a hole in the center of it. As the light drizzled fell from the sky it was collected with the dish and sent through the series of hoses. Cloth of various weights covered the entrances to some of the bottles and vials. As it progressed it was easy to see the difference between the gritty water that was first collected, and the almost pure water that came out at the end of the course the water traversed.

I was impressed. I had set up something along these lines at the place I had come to call home, but it was something else to see someone away from the influences and experiences of the education I’d received in my years come up with the same basic idea. It gave me a little more hope for the future generations. Even though they didn’t have education, they had imagination.

Then

We ended up staying in Nappanee for two weeks, replenishing our rations and somewhat overdoing it on the water. Finally we decided we’d better brave the terrain again. Kendallville was the next city on our map for the road we were following. It would take a while, but the road we were on didn’t go through any other towns, so that was positive. Kendallville didn’t have an x on it, but that didn’t entirely mean anything. The records this map was meant to keep were old.

With all of us helping, we began this next stage of our trip. We didn’t do much in the way of talking, but there wasn’t really anything to talk about. I’d long since finished my great granddad’s journal, so I didn’t have much to read either. I had grabbed a couple books from the museum of history in Nappanee, so that was something anyway. We moved through the day, as it was actually somewhat cooler out here in the hills than it had been out in the flat lands.

The rest of the world was still and unmoving, no life signs across the vast empty land. A few bugs seemed to have survived everything, but still even those were moderate and far apart. After spending most of my life within the city, my nose buried in the internet, it was kind of heartbreaking to see the true effects of the world war and the plague.

It only took a day and a half to reach Kendallville, and we reached the place at mid-day. From a distance, the place seemed to be pretty much abandoned. There was no condemned sign out front, so we didn’t know what to expect. We hid the cart behind a hill, and left the girls and the young boy along with all our stuff out of sight. My father stuck the gun in the waistline of his pants and pulled his shirt over it, then we walked towards the town with something of a slowed hunch as if we were total exhausted and with nothing but the clothes we were wearing, and the empty bags on our backs.

As we entered the city, we kept our eyes roving over the buildings, into the alleys, and around and under any piles of debris or abandoned cars. At first it seemed that nothing moved in this sad example of the arrogance of man, that we were invincible and that we were so advanced nothing could tear us down. So many things lay useless now, because our self-centered attitude had led to the destruction of everything we held dear.

The road was covered with dirt, but you could tell by the scuffs and drags that a lot of people had traversed this way not too long ago. Hard to really tell when, but the tracks had already been somewhat erased by the settling of dust.

As we went along, we could hear voices in the near distance. Cautiously we crept closer to them, keeping our eyes peeled and our steps silent. Finally we came to one building where the voices appeared to be merely around the corner. Pushing up against the wall of the building, we carefully peered around the brick wall. In the next road over, a makeshift camp had been set up. Debris had been piled and stacked in various arrangements to create shelters of sorts. About a dozen men were in the ‘encampment’, talking roughly and laughing throatily. Against a wall, mostly surrounded by the group of shelters, were four women and a few small children. They all had their hands tied by long cords to a single pole sticking from the wall of the building.

My father gestured me back, and we went in a different direction from the group in the clearing. I felt bad not helping them, but I knew me and my father would have been terribly outnumbered. There was no hope for those people.

Once we had gotten far enough from the group in the street, we circled around until we came across another food storage warehouse. My father bade me to stay back as he approached the doors. Just as he was about to open them, a voice shouted from inside. “I found another one! It’s been missed in this stack.”

Backing up still facing the warehouse, we turned and once again chose another direction. We’d skirted the town’s edge now for quite a while, but we found another food storage place several blocks away. This time there was no noise from inside, and after glancing inside for a few minutes, my father gestured me over. Once I was inside, he slid the door most of the way closed then told me to stand watch.

The first crate my father searched through was empty, as was the second; the third and fourth however were scarcely touched. They were near full of rations.

Quickly my father loaded up his bag with as many rations as he could stuff in it, then handed it to me to wear as he filled my sack with water pouches. Finally, our bags full, we made our way through the empty town. At the edge, we paused and looked around in all directions, affirming that there was no one else visible across the barren and cracked land. At last, we started back across the ground to the cart.

Once we reached the cart, we put our bags on it without unloading them and quickly turned the cart to pass around a hill alongside the town. As fast as we reasonably could, we made our way across the dirt and met up with the road on the other side. We didn’t want to risk being so close to the town overnight, so we forced ourselves to continue even though the sun was stretching toward the horizon. After a few hours had passed, and the sky was the deep purple of night, we stopped and spread ourselves out for the night.

The next morning we were up bright and early just before the sun came up. Eating and drinking our fill, we once again got under way. Following the road, we were to pass through one more town before we reached another condemned town. Pushing the cart seemed to have become easier with time. I figured it was probably that our muscles had become accustomed to pushing it so it wasn’t as much of a strain. It was still hard, especially when we’d had to pull it on the dirt the bay before.

After only a few hours, we came across the next town. We were surprised to find that the town had a very large ‘condemned’ sign over the main entrance. My father checked the map once again just to be sure, but it was not marked with an ‘x’. Stopping, we stood and watched the town for a while. There was no sign of movement inside, only dirt blowing in the light breeze. The sky was covered with a brownish haze, so the day was actually bearable. It lent an overcast look to the land, about like what video footage had shown the area looked like not too long after the fires had spread across the states. After the mass logging, so much wood lay around, and all the brush died, there had been terrible fires. They weren’t counted by acres, or even miles, but by states.

After a while, my father figured the place had to be abandoned. There was absolutely no sign whatsoever that anybody had been through this place in ages. So we began the long walk across the open for the town. At one point we had to stop to eat, so we rested for a while sitting on large rocks that littered the area. This side of town looked kind of like a battle field, huge craters  and patches of rocks that looked like a giant had been scratching at the earth. Skeletons were scattered throughout it, which caused Tara to shiver in fright.

While we were sitting there, I suddenly realized that there was a faint sound in the air. Looking towards the city, I strained my ears trying to listen. Seeing the look on my face, my dad turned toward the city too, and he began to listen also. The others became silent, and we could hear what it was. There were people coming towards us. They were picking their way carefully through the rocks and debris, trying not to let us know they were there. They must have seen us looking their way, because they stopped moving almost as one. Slowly, as if we were simply getting ready to continue moving toward the town, we packed up our things and got ready to pull the cart again. My father took out his gun, aimed at a far rock, and let off a shot. The noise of the weapon firing was deafening, echoing far across the rock strewn field. Barely, I heard what might have been the shot ricocheting off a rock.

Quickly, he set the gun in the box, lying open on the cart, and took his place beside me. Without another moment’s hesitation, we pulled the cart as fast as we could, taking a smaller road that led around the city.

We kept our distance from the city and watched carefully to be sure that no one was coming towards us. We could see a few scraggly persons leaning around large rocks and the sides of buildings. They appeared to have been carefully arranged to provide kind of a wall from the outside world.

Once we’d gone around them, we returned to the main road and kept walking. Many hours later, we once again were surrounded by skeletal trees, some of which had meager looking brush underneath them. The brush was the ghastly white of death, no color or life signaling they had ever been anything else. There were some bugs amongst the brushes, but nothing else lived in the forests that ached around us.

After a few more hours of walking, we could see Butler. The next town on our list. There was a large ‘x’ through it on our map, so we were pretty sure it was plagued. But to be cautious, my father and I entered first. We didn’t want to risk putting the girls in danger, if we didn’t have to. We crept amongst the dead trees, trying not to crunch the dead undergrowth beneath our feet. Up close, it was easy to see that the majority of the plants had actually long since crumpled to dust, joining that which covered the earth in all directions. The only way you could tell that it had been a plant, was that some of the dust was laid out in lines that looked as though sticks had lain in the same place and position long enough to decompose into dust.

I felt a chill of fear slide down my spine as we drew near to the wall of a building that came right up to the edge of this dead forest. This side of the building was scorched black, as though fire had long ago tried to claim it, but not been entirely successful.

Pushing up against the brick wall, we slid carefully up to the next edge, where the building turned and followed the road. Putting our faces up to the edge, we slowly stuck our heads out and peered around. The road beyond was empty. Dust blew in lazy traces, a piece of paper set adrift and curling through the air and around a building into another alley. There were empty cars lining the road, and it was easy to see that more were on other streets. There were a few cars that seemed to be abandoned in the middle of the roads. And then there was them. All over the place. Lying haphazardly in all manner of direction and position. The skeletons. Hundreds of them. If the whole city was full of them, perhaps thousands. Tens of thousands.

I shuddered, turning and leaning my back against the wall. I had to close my eyes and breathe deeply to keep from throwing up. I felt a hand squeeze my shoulder reassuringly. My father then pulled on my upper arm, as if to bid me to follow him. Opening my eyes, I was surprised to see that he was heading away from the city. “I can handle it, father, I’m alright now.” He shook his head.

“At this stage of the plague, when whole cities vanished without needing to be condemned first, there were no food storages. Back then there were still competitive grocery companies. There will likely be nothing left to take.” I hesitated, then followed him. He led us back to the wagon. The others were inquisitive, but my father just shook his head. “We will keep going.”

Without another word, my father began pulling the wagon. Rather than leave him to pull it himself while they tried to get him to explain, my sister and Laura also joined him in pulling, while I took a spot behind the wagon to push it. The little boy wanted to help too, so I let him help me push it. Though small, his contribution was appreciated.

A couple hours later, we passed a huge sign. It said that we were on the crux between Indiana and Ohio. The light from the day was almost gone, but we pushed on for another hour. Once darkness had settled over the land, we stopped for the night. We didn’t light any fires, simply curled up together In something of a tight row on top of the wagon. The frame had creaked a little as we got on it, but it held our weight. Sleep came grudgingly, and I kept rousing a little as visions of angry, terrified and sad skeletons filled my dreams. Finally, in the grey of morning, I gave up and carefully eased myself off the cart.

I was mildly surprised to see my father sitting on a large rock a short distance from the cart. His vantage point allowed him a view down a hillside and out over a valley. A town stood on the horizon, a black shadow in the still dim land.

“Father, before we even entered the town, I felt the most horrible feeling of terror. Like something icy had slithered down my back. What was that?” He nodded. “I felt it too son. That’s why we entered so carefully. I can only really wager as to what happened. My grandfather told me something of it. As far as I can tell, when something really horrible happens, such as mass death on that scale, it leaves a print on the world around it. I think maybe as a way to let those who come after know that that spot held a tragedy. Since there were so many deaths in that town, I would say that it definitely affected the world around it tremendously.”

I stood beside him, looking out across the land. “So what of that town? It’s condemned too, isn’t it? And what about the other condemned towns we’ve been through. Why was there not such a feeling about them?”

For a moment he didn’t answer. But then he sighed. “This all began with the quest for a cure. As you’ve read. But it went horribly wrong. Instead of curing, it killed. Millions died in the first round. The people of Butler had long held the rights to the only crematoriums still in business, so many of the bodies had been sent there for cremation. Within two weeks, they received and processed more than two million bodies. The rumor had it that the plague was started as a result of having so many bodies pass through it in such a short time. And yet, everything had been recorded to be so professional and clean…

“After the bodies had been sent through, there was a lull. For about three days. And then they were gone. Like that.” He snapped his fingers. “One morning the people who traveled there for jobs or to visit family came across a town full of bodies. Fifty thousand of them, approximately. All of them dead where they’d been standing, sitting, or sleeping. Some hung falling out of cars, others lay on the sidewalk, and most were in the process of preparing for bed. It was estimated that the deaths began at about five in the evening, and swept through the whole city within a matter of hours. The last one was a woman who’d made it through the night and tried to leave, and who lay in the middle of the road at the edge of town.

“There were soon hazmat teams scouring the city, trying to figure out what happened. The best thing it was determined, was to leave things was they were, and test the soil outside first, before working their way in. Those who had entered the town were cautioned that they were not allowed to leave until they were cleared. First they had to figure out what it was, before they could determine if the people had it or not.

“For three days, the people were kept in confinement, while the hazmat crew studied the situation. And then the rounds of death began in earnest. All the people who had entered Butler first, began to die. Just dropped over dead. And it was quickly discovered that many people had left the city before hazmat appeared, as they began dying in other cities as well. People who had work or family connections with Butler were dying in many cities in all directions. They tried to quarantine all those who had had contact with those people, but it was too difficult. Once it was out, it just kept spreading. Even the hazmat crews started dying. They hadn’t managed to figure out exactly what was happening, and so no one did.”

He glanced at me with a lopsided smile. “Or at least I thought. The gentleman grandfather mentioned apparently did, and now we are all immune. In a way, I suppose it is a good thing that the cure was not marketed and sold. It would be so expensive none would afford it. So I guess it is also a good thing that no one in power thought of the financial advantages of a cure.”

The darkness of night was fading away, leaving behind a new day. Light poured over a distant ridge and bathed the scorched and beaten earth below in warm and caressing rays. I turned my face toward the warmth, eyes closed against the extreme brightness.

After a while, we continued toward the city across the plain. A few scraggly trees stood like lonesome sentries in the dusty ground. As we neared the city, we again slowed down. Edgerton did not have an ‘x’ on it on the map, and there was no condemned sign out front. Slowing down, we realized that there were no hills or rocks, or any suitable place to hide our cart. With no other real choice, we pulled out cart right up to a building on the edge of town and left it there as we made our way into the city. At first there was no real sign of life, other than an occasional flying or crawling insect.

And then we could feel eyes on us. From all directions. Many eyes.

“Father,” I whispered. “I know,” he said, eyes carefully scanning all the buildings, alleys, and abandoned cars around us. He did not pull out the gun, which probably would have done no good as it seemed that a large number of persons surrounded us. Clearing his throat, my father was about to speak, when all of a sudden several men appeared from hiding places around us and approached us with weapons of all sorts. A lot of them looked like simple, broken pieces of housing or vehicles, but some of them were a little more complex with glass or metal tied onto longer rods or clubs.

Without waiting for explanation or allowing us to talk, they closed in on us. With precision, they aimed their blunt weapons to our heads. First my father, then sister, the woman, then myself were attacked. I felt a rather sharp pain in the back of my head, and the world collapsed into darkness. I could vaguely hear the little boy begging them not to hurt us. Then I knew nothing.

Now

It had been a couple days since my conversation with the Missus. Alec was seeming a little bit agitated at the fact that we had been here for so long. He was in a hurry to go. After all the things I had told him about the places I’d been, he could hardly hold back the urge to keep going.

I simply shrugged. There wasn’t much he could do about it, as I was the one who held the map with our route traced out on it. I only had drawn our course in case I didn’t manage to finish our journey together. If something happened to, me, there was still a ‘hard copy’ idea of our long journey since leaving Chicago all those many years ago.

I knew we would leave soon, but I was sure that I needed to teach just a little bit more. They had the basic idea of numbers and letters, adding and taking away, but there was still just so much more to teach.

There was something else I was tentatively curious about as well. A large city like this would have had to have at least a couple libraries in its time. And even so, not all the schools could have burned down either. I decided I wanted to check it out.

Leaving the building, I went to the little teaching clearing where I knew that Alec was studying. I asked him to summon a few of the more advanced students, which he promptly left to do. Within a short time, five other persons stood in front of me, intrigue plain of their faces. One of them looked like he’d been awakened to come here.

When they were all there, and Alec was with us, I told them why we were here. “I want us to go on a scavenger hunt,” I said. They gave me blank expressions. “A scavenger hunt is where a group of people split off into two’s and threes and then look for specific things. In this case, we are looking for books.” If anything, brows furrowed further. I held out a book in both hands, like a man holding pure water cupped in their hands.

“These are books. They hold much writing, many words. They hold stories, pictures, and in some cases instructions.” I tucked the book back into my back sack. “So this is what we are going to do. I will give each of you a map of the city, which I have traced onto pieces of paper. You all know the words I am looking for, which is why you have been chosen. You must look at all building sides, or signs. The words you are looking for have been written on your maps, in the key, for reference. They are: ‘BOOKS’, ‘LIBRARY’, and ‘SCHOOL’.”

I organized us in groups of two, other than myself. I knew one of the self-appointed guards would follow me, so I wouldn’t be alone. I sent us into all directions of the city, with the clear instructions that when the sun had passed the mid-day peak, and was going back down, they were to turn around and come straight back to this circle.

As I passed what I figured was the edge of the city, I smiled to myself as I felt the eyes of my follower on my back. Turning toward where I figured he was, I gestured for him to come close. For a few seconds, nothing happened, then a man stepped out from behind a pile of rubble and walked up to me. “I would rather as we go for this walk that you were nearer. We will be going a ways.”

So we walked together out and amongst the rubble and ruin that had once been this glorious monopoly. After about half an hour, I saw a half buried sign. I could just barely see the black letters “LIB” on the left side of the sign. Nodding to myself, I stepped over large rocks, around a huge piece or walling sticking out of the grass, and up to the sign. Above the beginning of the big word, was a smaller word. ‘Chicago’. Yeah, this was a library, It had been empty since just during the plague, when people stopped venturing out of the four walls that were their haven. Home.

Other trash and pieces of buildings were strewn up the huge steps that led to the gaping hole that had once held glass doors. Inside it was entirely dark, like the chilling entrance to a cave or something. Making our way carefully up the stairs to the opening, we peered inside. Looking around, I grabbed a piece of wood from a wall frame and twisted and wrenched it around until it came off. Wrapping a strip of cloth around it, I lit it afire.

The man in my presence did his best to hide surprise, but it was clear in his eyes that the idea of an old man creating fire was something else. I turned without comment and entered the library. At first there was nothing to really show that the large halls would yield anything, but then there were the rooms. In each room though the story was the same. All of the huge shelves were bare, not a single book in sight. The second floor revealed the same, as did the third. I felt a deep disappointment all the way to my gut. Gone? How could ALL the books just be gone?

As we were about to leave the building, I saw a door half hidden by debris. I caught sight of the sign and stopped in my tracks. The man, who hadn’t been paying attention, just barely managed to stop short of walking into me.

“What is it?” He asked. I pointed to the door. “A basement,” I said. He shrugged. “Nothing probably in there, would there be?” I mulled it over, then nodded slowly. “Actually, I should have thought of it when the first room was empty. It became very common as the plague was roving for library holders to put their books in the basement. The greatest treasures I’ve ever found were in basements.”

He helped me clear the piles of shambles away from the door then tried to open it. The door groaned, but wouldn’t budge. I nodded. “The wood is so warped and swollen it won’t open as such. We’ll have to break it open.” On the wall was a fire box with an ax in it, and I pointed it out. He shook his head and held out his hands. He didn’t know what I meant. So I explained and he did as I said. The glass had already long since been broken out, so he grabbed the ax, held it up over his head, and swung it. The blunt end of the ax hit the door with a boom that resounded down the corridors of the library. The door bounced in its frame and a large crack appeared, but it stayed in place. I shook my head and told him to turn it around. He did so and tried again. This time, the blade of the ax slashed through the crack and down to the bottom of the door, rending it in two. His eyes widened and he held up the ax and studied it.

I reached out and pushed the door inward, down the stairwell. Holding the torch out in front of me, we peered down into the gloom that hid below ground. The light of day had not shone in this place in about two hundred years. Nor had the light of man, as the way had been blocked and hidden by catastrophe for more than half that time.

Finally I made to enter the stairwell, but the man in my company put a hand to my chest. He took the torch from me and insisted on going first, leading the way down to the basement. Following, I almost stumbled when he stopped suddenly about halfway down. “There’s a stair out here, just in front of me.” He carefully stepped over the hole and then held the torch high and helped me step over the gap in the stairs where one of them had given out. The light from the torch couldn’t reach the bottom underneath, but it was probably quite a ways down.

At the bottom of the stairs, I had to stop to catch my breath. This large library had stolen most of the strength I had started the day with. My breath betrayed me though, catching and causing me to cough. The man made to help me and I waved him away. “I’m fine. I just need to teach my lungs how to breathe again,” I said somewhat humorously. I pulled out a water pouch and drank deeply, slowly, then returned it to a pocket.

Finally I straightened and gazed around, my eyes landing on riches. A vast treasure trove. Nearly as large as the one I’d found in my younger days. If I hadn’t already found myself a home, I’d have taken residence here.

Piles, stacks, boxes, chests, whole shipping crates. Shelves, aisles, rows, cabinets, glass boxes… The room was filled to brimming with books. The man with me stared in awe. “Have you ever seen such riches of information?” He breathed silently. I glanced at him in new-found admiration, and quiet curiosity. He glanced at me, then laughed a little. “Oh. My mother told me of books. She said that her father had kept one for the longest time, teaching her to read and write, using it as a basis. She said the book had long since been destroyed, but she passed all that knowledge on to me. I’ve taught my child all I can remember, and I’ll teach our youngest as he reaches the age he can be taught. And a confession, I’ve been spying on your lessons with the others. I already knew some of what you’ve been teaching, but most of it is stuff I never knew. As to say numbers and number play. The book only really had words, and no explanation for the few numbers it used. There had been page numbers, but they were all worn away by the time my grandfather thought to teach my mother anything at all.”

I patted him on the back. “It truly pleases me to know for sure that the knowledge I’ve taught is coming to some usage, and to learn that at least some people have been taught anything to do with letters and such. Many people now don’t even know what they are supposed to be teaching, let alone know what to learn.”

Turning once more to the books, I walked over to a pile and lifted one of the books up off it. The book was almost in pristine condition. The pages were actually still a little crisp, as if it’d been printed only in the last year. I furrowed my brow, then nodded to myself. “The lack of sunlight and clean air has preserved them. They are in excellent condition.” The man walked over and glanced at the book I held. “A dictionary? Gee, that has just about everything a man would need to know about words in it, doesn’t it?” I shook my head. “This book here holds only a trifle of the knowledge that man-kind had reached at full glory. But for all that knowledge, they didn’t bother to put it to any use. It’s like if your ceiling had a leak, and you had the tools and the know, but you didn’t bother to make time to do it. It wasn’t important enough to fix it right away, and by the time you went to fix it finally, it was too late and walking on the roof caused the whole thing to cave in. The leak slowly ate away at the rest of the roof, until there wasn’t enough solidity to even stand on, let alone walk.”

I don’t think he entirely understood me, but the idea got through. He nodded. I spent a while paging through some of the books, just to get an idea of what was truly hidden down here. I chose a few books to bring back with me in my back sack, simple books that would be easy to read for those I was teaching. I also brought some children’s books, with lots of pictures in them. The best way to teach some of the words was to have pictures for reference. ‘Trees’ for example.

Finally we headed back up the stairs. At the top, I took the torch back and we once again made for the entrance to the library. As I walked out the front entrance, I paused for the briefest of moments, and a blunt object swung into the empty air I had been just about to occupy. Startled, I reacted out of instinct and swung the torch in the general direction of the person holding onto the weapon. The torch fell out of my hands as the contact forced it to arc away.

A sharp scream came from that direction, and before I could even really get a grasp of the situation, a hand pulled me backwards and I stumbled to the floor. The man who had been with me stepped around me as I pulled myself to my knees and held my hands to my chest. My wrists and hands pulsed with sharp pain, my knees battling for attention as they ached. Turning, I tried to see what was going on outside, but the darkness inside, the light of day, and the searing of pain caused my vision to blur.

At long last, a single figure plopped to the floor in front of me as my eyes slowly cleared. I was somewhat surprised to see the man who had accompanied me sitting on the floor in front of me, the ax held loosely in hands that seemed surprised at their actions. The ax was covered in blood, and some of it dripped off the man’s arms. His eyes were withdrawn and horrified.

“I- I killed them. All of them. This thing, this weapon. Surely it changes things for us. Completely.” He looked at me. “Are there more of these things? Are they only in libraries?” I shook my head. “There are many more, I’m sure. I wouldn’t know where to look, but I’m sure they are in other types of buildings. They should only be used in self-defense though. They should not be used to attack others. You would be no better than them if you went after them.” He nodded. “Of course. Defense only. Our food gathering parties are regularly attacked and slaughtered by the barbarians who live in the middle of the city. With these we would have a better chance of surviving such an attack.”

Finally we stood and left the building. The bodies of what had been probably eight men lay in various forms of dismemberment along the grand staircase in front of the library. Trying not to really look too close at the bodies, we returned to the area the people called home. Most of the other people were already back, with only one group of two as yet unaccounted for.

Alec rushed over to me when he saw how disheveled I was. The man who had accompanied me had already had a chance to tell a few people about the encounter and the ax, so word had obviously spread to these people as well. Indeed, Alec was terribly concerned, and would not settle until I had reassured him emphatically that while tired from our journey, I was entirely unscathed. The man I’d been with had received a few scrapes, and a rather harsh looking bruise on his shoulder, but he too was relatively uninjured.

Laying out the books on the makeshift desk, I allowed the others to page through them while we waited for the other two to return. A few hours after they should have been back, they straggled into the area.

Their story spread quickly. They had made a lot of distance, marking out two schools, a library, and four book stores, before they were ambushed. Thinking quickly, they had slipped out of the circle of attackers and hurried out of sight around a corner. The men pursued them for quite a distance, but then as they ducked around one corner, they had ducked down an entrance to the subway. Once down, they had hidden in a dusty, long-abandoned store, as the men who were after them thundered down the stairs. There had been a moment of argument, then the men had split to follow the tracks in both directions. After the attackers had left, the two men had gone back up the same stairs, and raced through the city trying to come home. They had stumbled onto another group of men, who also gave chase.

One of the attackers had caught up with them, and tried to beat them down. One of the two men had turned and caught the attacker by surprised, catching him with a well-placed swing and throwing him to the ground.

They had kept running, trying to put distance between them and those who chased them. But they kept up with them, as they sped almost recklessly through the streets and alleys. They had circled the residents of this haven, trying not to bring the attackers too close. Finally, they had put enough distance between them and those who followed, that they ducked into a sewer entrance. They had followed the sewer in a direction that led underneath the road they’d been running down, and turned off towards the haven. At long last, they had risen from the sewers not far from the area the decent people called home, and trudged wearily home.

They were spent for the day, physical and mental energies sapped. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to skip today’s lessons, in light of the day’s activities. I hadn’t realized until now just how dangerous it was to live here. It was somewhat surprising that these people weren’t attacked as they slept. I wondered at that. Why wouldn’t the aggressive people around them attack?

Then

Darkness. Muffled noises. Nothing loud enough to give away what it was. I wasn’t sure if my eyes were open or not. A musty dankness filled my nose, and the smell of really old earth. The ground beneath me was cold, and it had seeped up through my arm and side all the way into my bones.

“Dad?” I sat up in the total dark. “Tara?” There was a soft groan somewhere in front of me. Leaning forward onto my knees, I reached out a tentative and shaking hand, waving it back and forth. I felt nothing, and so used my knees and one of my hands to crawl forward, still reaching back and forth with the other hand. Finally, what seemed like ages later but was really only moments, I felt some cloth and a softly solid lump beneath it. Feeling further I realized it was someone’s side. The form was too large to be Tara though. “Laura?” Another moan. For sure, Laura.

Something scraped in the dark to my left, causing my head to turn. My eyes ached from straining to see something, anything at all, in the dark. It didn’t help that my own breathing and pounding heart, throbbing blood, made it too loud for me to hear anything distinctive. Closing my eyes, I forced myself to steady, crawling in the direction of the noise I’d heard. Many long seconds later, I stumbled over something with the hand on the ground, and I stopped to check it out. This time my hand found a head of hair. By feeling the length of it, I verified this must be Tara. Again she moved, dragging her arm along the ground and up to her side.

I sat up against her in the darkness, feeling a measure of comfort in knowing at least where she was. I took her upper body in my arms and held her to me, so I could be sure she wasn’t going anywhere. With my eyes closed, I forced myself to listen as carefully as I could. Barely, I could hear two breaths coming from the direction I’d just been. From up above, I could hear vague voices. At long last, I realized one of them was my father. So the second breath in the other direction had been the boy’s. So we were all here, and alive.

The main question was where ‘here’ was. The other being why we were here. We must have been underground, which would explain why the smell of ground was so strong. I still could see nothing in the gloom, but I felt calmed by the fact that my father was talking. Maybe he was sorting things out.

At one point, Tara jerked awake in my arms. She uttered a few terrified squeaks, before I managed to get her attention. I told her what I had figured out so far, then tried to reassure her. “I know it’s dark, just close your eyes. It’s probably night or something. I’m sure father will straighten this out and they’ll let us go. If they wanted us dead, we would be. They’ll let us go.” She didn’t say anything at first, just clung to me in terror.

“Do you really think so? Or are you just trying to make me feel better.” I think I was trying to make myself feel better more than her, but I nodded. “Yeah. I do think so. You’ll see, it won’t take long.” I didn’t let my mind think of what would happen if they didn’t.

After what seemed like forever, the voices upstairs stopped and chairs scraped. The floor creaked as weight transferred itself step by step across the floor. The noise ended as they went through what was probably a doorway. A few minutes later, there was the sound of metal on metal, shrieking in protest, then bright light poured through a door and into the basement. I squinted as the sudden bright light brought pain to them. My breath caught in my throat, and I raised a hand to block the light.

Then two powerful hands were shaking me gently as my father asked if I was okay. I reassured him that I was fine. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I could hear someone rousing the woman and her boy. There were three men with my father, and they helped us all up the narrow stairs. At the top, I was surprised to see a house that looked for all the world as if nothing terrible had happened. Except that no electronic things were running, you wouldn’t know the world had ended.

We were led into a living room, and bid to sit. Once we were seated, with my father standing against a doorway, the man who seemed to be in charge turned to us. “I would like to apologize for the rough treatment. We’ve had a hectic time since the power and Glass-COM went offline. We have had roving bands of destroyers through. We just kind of learned how to pull together to keep things going. We’ve lost a few people, and some have left to find family, but for the most part we have managed to keep the main portion of the populace together and safe. You are free to leave, and you may take your things with you, but we cannot allow you to take anything from our city. You seem to be well off on rations and water, so you should be able to reach Napoleon easily enough. We have already gathered from Bryan, which is next on the route, so there is nothing left till Napoleon. We have not yet ventured that far. A raiding party that far off would take a while. We have studied your transportation device though, and that should make it easier and quicker for us to get rations and water from greater distances.”

The woman looked around a minute, then spoke. “Would it be possible for me and my boy to stay here? We’ve nowhere else to go, and there isn’t really a reason for us to go to D.C. We’d like to put an end to our traveling.” The man thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “You can stay, but you will need to carry your own weight, and at times step up and lend what you can toward our efforts to keep a semblance of our former city running.” The woman nodded. “Yes of course. More than happy to.” He gestured for another man, who led them away.

“We’ve been here over the night already, so I think we had better be moving on,” my father said. Without question, my sister and I rose to our feet and followed our father through the hall and out the door. A group of men accompanied us to the east edge of town and led us to our cart. It was relatively untouched other than seeming rifled through. Our bags lay in a pile on the cart.

Waving, my father led us away from the town. Glancing back, I shivered. The encounter had seemed a little off. Why attack what seemed like a traveling family, then just let us all go? It just didn’t seem quite right. Finally I turned to my father after we were far enough away I knew my voice wouldn’t carry. “Father, I believe we ought to find a road that leads around both of the next towns. I don’t think I trust that man at all.” He glanced at me thoughtfully. “Yeah, I was kind of thinking about that too. When we are out of site, beyond that curve up there, we’ll look at the map and figure things out.” We continued without hesitation, as if we weren’t even going to think about going anywhere else, but once we were out of sight, we stopped and glanced at the map. Both of the mentioned towns were actually not on the main road we were following, but on roads that branched off, so we didn’t have to worry about going through them. The next town actually on the main was Waterville.

The name made me laugh. Waterville? Yeah right. There wasn’t any water left. Not around here anyway. At one point there had been a huge lake to the north of us, Lake Michigan I believe it was called. It had shrunk and shrunk, being used by some as a source of drinking or recreational water, until it had been half its size. At that point, people stopped using it. The lake shrinking as it had had driven the price of property down, because they were no longer considered lake front property. The lake front had moved by many miles. As the prices went down, people couldn’t make as much money selling their houses, and so the world got a little bit poorer.

The other large water nearby had been Lake Eerie. It too had shrunk, perhaps faster. Maybe not though, since it had started out smaller. It had shrunk so small that it barely still registered as a lake. You could now actually walk to Canada from Ohio. So Waterville had not been anywhere near the shores of a lake for a little over a century.

We walked all day, and only stopped when the sun had long since set and the sky was nearly black. I take it back though, because the sky was never completely black. I had come to realize that the sky always held a little light, whether it was the light from the stars, or a soft glow from the sun on the other side of the earth. It took not having any light at night for me to finally notice that the world was never pitch back. Having spent the night in a fully enclosed room with no windows helped too. It gave me a new perspective of what pure darkness truly was.

We curled up together on top of the cart and drifted to sleep, though I kept startling awake in the night, sure I heard something out there amongst the dead forests.

Finally, morning came. The warm air reminded me that it was summer time. It should be somewhere in about June right now. It had been about three months since all this began, on the 18 of March. I stared up through the greyish blue sky, my mind lost to memory. It was still kind of hard to grasp that all of this was really happening. That there was no more, nor would there ever likely be again, any form of electricity, or internet, or even really knowledge. It was all gone. All of the world’s information was kept online. How would people learn again? They wouldn’t. There was no way. Even if we taught our kids the things we knew, we didn’t know enough to teach them enough to pick things back up.

At last my father sat up yawning and shook his head. At almost the same moment, my sister sat up and rubbed her eyes. We ate some of the ration food, but none of us were very hungry. We did drink a lot of water, just because we knew we would need to stay hydrated. Even though it was cooler here than it had been closer to Chicago, it was still pretty hot, and getting hotter. June had brought rolling waves of heat from the flat lands, penetrating even into the thick woods.

Once we were ready, we started out again. The going was a little slower, and noticeably harder without Laura helping. But we kept on rolling the cart down the large road. We would get used to the difference, I was sure. We had become conditioned to pushing it before, so there was no problem with it now. At any rate, we couldn’t leave it behind, so we just stopped more often, and rested a little longer than we had before.

At long last, as the sun was on its way back down again, we could see the town peeking over the tops of the trees before us. It was still a great distance away, but we would reach it before it was too dark to see.

As the sun crested the hills, we came into full view of Waterville. With tired sighs of relief, we ventured closer. There was no sign of life. The place seemed abandoned. Of course, we had made that rather incorrect assumption about Edgerton, and that had not boded well. They had let us leave, but who was to say that anyone else would.

So we stashed our cart behind some trees, ready to leave at a moment’s notice. We couldn’t leave Tara by herself, so we all crept through the trees towards the city. And then it happened. As the sun dipped the last of its reluctantly retreating edge down below the horizon, the entire city lit up. Bright lights flooded the streets. All the lamps lining the street came on in parallel two’s, all the way through town. Some of the lights in the houses came on as well, and the city hummed with power.

Now

At long last, the day had come. We were going to leave. I had spent a few days explaining the dictionary, and the children’s picture books, and some other books we had brought back. I had taken my students to the main library I had discovered with my defender, and I had shown them which books were helpful, such as manuals and how-to books, and which ones were mostly works of imagination. I had shown them which words to look for amongst the books, which seemed to be mostly organized by genre. There were many kinds of instruction manuals, for anything from construction and handiwork, to plants and clothes making. These people would be well off.

I had also found a building in their midst with large rooms in it, and I showed them how to clean it up, and left instructions for them to bring chairs from houses or desks from schools, to use these rooms as classrooms. I told them that the best way to figure some of these things out was to experiment. Most how-to books gave a list of tools with their names, and other books showed examples of usage. Of course they couldn’t jumpstart society any time soon, but it was a good start to give people the resources and let them figure out how to use it. They could probably figure out how to do almost anything, if they would just read to find it.

My companion couldn’t be happier that we were leaving. He was eager to continue our journey. I had decided we wouldn’t go south, but straight North. There were things there he needed to see. We had already looped through Waterville on our way here, so we needn’t go through there again.

I had been summoned early this morning to visit with Missus before we left, and so I stood in her grand office, waiting for her to speak. Finally she turned toward me. “Where will you go?” I gestured loosely to the north. “We will go to Canada. To the north. There is someone and something there, that I wish my companion to see.” She raised an eyebrow. “Canada? I thought no one was allowed up there?” I nodded. “In my younger days though, I made friends with the person who owns it.” Both eyebrows arched upward. “Really? That’s something else. You’ve actually been there then? Does it really have…?” She didn’t finish the sentence, but I knew what she meant. “Yes, it does. They are everywhere. Many of them. I would say hundreds of thousands of them.” She stared at me in disbelief. “Truly?” I nodded. A soft smile graced her aged lips and she shook her head. “Well, your companion is very lucky then. Few alive today have ever seen them, nor will they ever. I bid you good journey, as I promised I would. I’m glad we were able to gain from your knowledge.” She stood and walked around the desk, giving me a big hug.

Finally at long last, me and my companion shouldered our bags and set out again on our journey of my life. Onward, to Canada, to see the trees.

Preview!

A Survivor’s Tale

Part Two

By: Rebecca Reynolds

Then

My world was upside down. I felt as if I’d been dragged through a carwash without the car, or the water. My head spun, as I sat in the deep dusty and grey dirt at the edge of Waterville Ohio. All I could do was gesture weakly at the city, all strength sapped from my shocked body.

At long last my father moved from where he’d stood rooted to the spot for I don’t know how long. Turning, he reached out and gently nudged my sister, then glanced over at me. “Son, come on. Stand. We need to find answers. If the power is back on, then-.” He didn’t finish his sentence. There wasn’t really anything to say. If the power was back on, we were still kind of in the same dilemma we’d been in for the last while. Stuck here, and mother was gone…

I shook my head, standing and walking toward the city. I was so determined to find the answers to this unforeseen occurrence, that safety was the least of my concerns.

But my father put a stern hand on my shoulder, keeping me in check. “Listen, son. We need to go about this cautiously. Things may not be as they seem, so we need to be careful. Until we know the truth of the situation, we treat this as any other town we’ve been through. We need to keep our wits about us.” I hesitated a moment, looking into the town in thought, but finally I allowed my father to step around me to lead, as I took my sister’s hand to be sure she was still with us.

Cautiously, looking long into the alleys and side roads we passed, we crept into the silent town. In the light from the poles lining the streets, the town looked like an eerie ghost town from the twilight zone. Deep ash and dusty dirt filled the roads, piled against buildings, and attempted to cover anything that even thought about standing tall. Cars were drifted over with it, and a lot of doorways were half covered in it. Some of it drifted down and blew gently, given an orange tint from the light.

And nothing else moved. The town had a deep hush to it, as if this grey covering were a muting blanket. Walking deeper into the city, my nerves were wrought tightly and my eyes searched almost longingly for someone else, anyone.

Glancing behind us, I saw that our trek had left deep trails through the ash and dirt, where the light didn’t quite reach the bottom. I shuddered, glancing into the alleys. Dark windows were the only thing watching us as we traversed down this, the main street. At long last, we reached a large island in the middle of the road, what had been known as a roundabout. The large, completely round spot stood out pristinely, not a single marring track to show the passage of anything else. Only the sound of power kept the area from being entirely silent.

As we reached the edge of the island in the road, we stopped short of ruining the smooth surface. Looking around, we tried to hear anyone else, but nothing came to our ears. Tara pulled up close to our father, and I instinctively reached out and took hold of his sleeve.

Also by Rebecca Reynolds:

A Survivor’s Tale, Part Two

A Survivor’s Tale, Part Three

Coming soon:

A Survivor’s Tale, Part Four

Table of Contents

A Survivor's Tale, Part One

Excerpt from A Survivor’s Tale Part Two

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