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.

I thought I saw a pair of eyes watching me from the edge of a building, but when I looked that direction, there was no one there. “Do you see someone, son?” I shook my head. “I thought I did, but now I don’t.” I kept looking toward the building, hoping they would reappear, but no one did.

At long last, we turned and made our way down another street. Shortly, we came to a large building with a sign almost the same shade of grey that the deep dust was, proclaiming this to be a courthouse. Our father whispered that the records to the city had to be in there, so we made our way up the tall stairs. There was a large crack along the middle of the steps, forcing us to go around on the very edge of the stairs. Finally, we reached the huge maw of an opening, and looked in. It was purely dark inside. Directly inside the doorway it was easy to make out the black and white streaks of marble on the floor, and a little ways in I could see what might have been columns stretching to the high ceiling. Beyond that the darkness seemed to devour the room.

Shivering, I shrank back from the doorway. There was no way I was going to enter that room. Not in the midst of night. Maybe not ever, for fear the building might eat me. I turned to look down the steps, and found my face planted firmly in a dirty shirt. The solid form inside it kept me from falling down the stairs, as I brought my hands up to push myself off and step back in shock. I looked up to see a ragged face with horrible teeth, one of them golden and crooked. Dark eyes grinned at me above a skewed nose, and black shaggy hair hung in short locks across his head. And that grin, that toothy eerie grin, demanded my attention be returned to it.

My father reached towards his gun, but the man shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that. Right about now, you’ve got more to worry of than I. I’m simply the front door, you gotta watch out for the room beyond.” I felt my eyebrows bunch with extreme confusion. I didn’t have a clue what he meant by his rambling, but my father’s hand paused as he glanced around at the seemingly empty streets. “It’s alright, you aint a target yet, just keep your hands where we can see them. We don’t want any trouble, long’s you don’t either.” My father stood still, eyes scanning the streets.

“If you want us to leave, we will. We were just passing through, and the lights intrigued us. Is the power back up? Glass-COM? Is it all back?” The man shook his head. “Nah. The power’s not up, and Glass-COM… Not quite sure what that is. Nah.” He shook his head again as his eyes betrayed his mind working hard to figure us out. “And you don’t hafta leave, if you don’t mean trouble. But you can’t have none of our shares either. I can getcha to a place to sleep if you’d like, then we’ll see in the morning what the boss-man’d like for you to do.”

My father nodded again, and the scraggly man led us back down the street, and in yet a different direction, to an apartment. He stopped at the bottom of the small set of stairs, watching us walk past him and onto the stairs leading to the building. The stairs to this particular apartment had been cleared, so the door was reachable. It was metal and glass, and cold to the touch. Without much effort though, it swung inward to allow entrance.

As we were walking down the hall, soft amber lights came to life near the ceiling, affording us a view of the area we were in. The paint on the wall was all scraped and worn, a yellow color that I wasn’t sure whether it was intentional or not. The floor had brown linoleum on it, but it too was all scratched, patched, and worn. At long last, my father chose a door for us to open, and we entered an apartment. There were two couches in the living room, and a cot in the corner. Uncannily that created three sleeping spaces, just enough for us.

Without many other options, we readied for bed. We found a small stack of ration packages and water pouches on the counter in the small kitchen, just enough for the three of us to have ‘dinner’ and ‘breakfast’. I shuddered. It was almost as if we’d been expected for the night.

My father set up a plan with me to keep a watch through the night. He would let me sleep first, and wake me as it grew closer to morning. And so I fell asleep reluctantly on the cot at the edge of the room, as my father stood watch at the door to the room.

Towards morning, my father shook me awake and lay down on the couch to get his own sleep. I was still tired, and could have probably slept for another few hours, but I knew my father needed some sleep as well, so I forced my eyes to stay open. Every little creak or pop of the building made my eyes jerk open, my breath catch, and my frame straighten like a board.

As the first rays of the returning sun caught hold of the buildings, the lights slowly turned off. My eyebrows drew together. Breathing quickly, I looked around out the window. The streets were lightening, but the absence of the powered lights made it seem gloomier, more lifeless than before. I hadn’t thought that possible, and yet there it was. Without the orange lights though, the place didn’t look as creepy, just empty.

Tara woke up, and we sat watching and waiting as my father slept. At long last he awoke. Almost at the same time, the scraggly looking man appeared in the alley between two buildings across the street, staring idly at our apartment. We grabbed up the ration packages and ate and drank quickly, then left the shelter of the apartment building. As we stepped out the front door, the man stepped in front of us. “Come. The boss-man wants to see you.” My father hesitated, glancing in the direction of the edge of town where we’d left our cart.

Finally though, he wordlessly led us after the retreating form of the rugged man. Something seemed wrong with our surroundings though, and at last I noticed it. Where were our tracks? The street showed no trace that we had ever set foot in it, not even a disturbance of the dust to betray that anyone had come this way, other than the single trail leading from the alley the man had been standing in earlier. The rest of the deep grey dirt was smooth and untouched.

I tugged on my father’s sleeve and pointed to the smooth ash covering the ground. At first his eyebrows rose uncomprehendingly, and then his eyes widened. He looked hard at all the dust, trying to find some trace of our passage the previous night. And there was none to be found.

Shuddering noticeably, he shook his head and kept plodding after our guide. My sister and I followed after him, like ducklings through deep mud.

After a long series of turns, and ducking through various alleys that I was sure were unnecessary, we came to a large building. It took a moment, but I realized this was the same courthouse we had gone to before. The huge crack in the stairs, and the sign out front proved that.

Without pausing, the man led us through the empty doorway and into the huge lobby. In the light of day it was easy to see this cavernous room.

Wide columns stretched to the arched ceiling, painted with barely discernible figures and shapes, some of them trailing like vines down the walls around it. A very large, black marble desk stood in the exact center of the room, with no chair. Beyond it, various doors led to what were probably court rooms of sorts. I had never been in a courthouse; they hadn’t been used since long before the plague. Most hearings anymore had been available on the internet, which graduated to the Glass-Net after the plague. Juries and judges presided over the case through video chat, and evidence was held in a main chamber in D.C. if it was a really important case, or smaller evidence holdings in their respective towns if it was a smaller case.

The scraggly man led us through one of the doors on the other side of the room, and we followed a hallway to a door at the end. A small sign marked that this was court room number one. Through the door, we entered a large room, though it was smaller than the lobby had been. Many rows led down to the judge’s chair at the bottom, as this room was built sort of amphitheater style. Another man sat in the judge’s chair, his posture and demeanor speaking of elegance and authority. This was the man in charge.

We were bid to stop at the bottom of the room, just before a waist high railing. I glanced at the railing, and then looked closer. It was made of real wood! It was shiny, smooth, true wood.

But then my attention was brought to the man above us in the judge chair. His hair and clothing were in very good shape, his skin clean. His hands were folded passively on the surface in front of him, and his expression was one of deep patience. Blue eyes peered deeply and intensively at us, a moment of silence weighing the room down.

Finally though, he raised a hand. “Come forward, sir.” The disheveled man opened the small door on the railing, and ushered my father through it before closing it once more. My father approached the tall judge chair, his shoulders drawn together in suspicion.

After another moment of silence the man in the judge chair finally spoke. “And what is your purpose?” At first my father said nothing. Then, “we are traveling. We intend to go to Washington, D.C.” The man in the high chair seemed to contemplate that. “Why?” My father shrugged. “We seek answers. I would like to know what the government intends to do to fix matters.” The man nodded, then shook his head. “That would be a wasted journey, man.” My father tilted his head a little. “What do you mean?”

“The government is gone. They ceased to exist about a month ago.” My father dropped his hands to his side and stood up straighter. “What do you mean, gone? How could they just not exist? They are the biggest fraction in the world!”

The man raised a finger to silence my father. “They are gone. They have all been murdered. Groups of angry rioters trapped them in the Whitehouse, where they held their ground for a couple months. Finally though, they were overrun, and destroyed. Not a one survived. They’ve strung bodies like Christmas lights around the walls of the Whitehouse, and taken the whole thing over as their own. To go to D.C. is to ask for death.” My father stared at him in stricken disbelief.

“It’s true. A regular citizen of D.C. made it out alive, and he came through here on his way west. He told us all about it. So you should find a new course.” My father hesitated. “You’ll let us go then?” The man in the judge chair nodded. “Well, of course. We are not barbarians. You may stay as long as you like, and you may go when you wish. Your things have been delivered to the apartment you slept in. However, we’ve taken your transportation device for further study. We will be done with it in a few hours. When we are finished, we will deliver it to your residence, and you will be allowed to leave.”

“Where will we go? What is there to do, if the government is gone?” My father sounded deeply lost. The man shrugged. “We can only tell you what we know. As far as we know the only really safe place is far to the west. But we have not heard any word from the south, so perhaps you could go there.” The man waved a hand and the scraggly man led us back out of the building and to the apartment we had spent the night in.

Left alone at the top of the front stairs, we stood for a few minutes surveying our surroundings. There were so many questions we hadn’t been given the chance to ask. After a few minutes though, we went ahead and returned to the room we had chosen. Our bags had been stacked on one of the couches, a pile of ration and water left on the counter again. And nothing to do but wait. Wait for our cart to be returned, so we could continue our journey. But the question we had now was, where? Where could we go from here, with our previous destination so cruelly and entirely destroyed? Should we go south, or west? Perhaps even north?

My father pulled out the road map book and opened it to a view of the United States. The edges of the states had been altered numerous times throughout history, the border of Canada dropping to cover half of all the northernmost states, including Wisconsin. But the coast had grown too as the water was depleted worldwide. My father sat wordlessly on the floor, scanning the large foldout image before him. I could see that his mind was working furiously to figure out what we should do.

At long last he nodded to himself, slowly at first, then a quick nod before looking up at us. “We’ll go north. There’s a huge underground cavern up there that was meant to be a fallout shelter. It was barely finished when the war ended, so they didn’t end up using it.” My sister and I glanced at each other. All this south and east travel, and now we were going to go north again? Erg. Would this journey never end? Would things ever return even to the barest semblance of what it once was? Before the power left, and Glass-Com ended, and Mother-

My throat hardened, and I felt tears begin to course down my cheeks. I couldn’t stop them. Like a dam burst open, they poured down my face. Huge sobs wracked my small frame. Dimly, I felt large arms circle me tightly, and a smaller set as well. For the longest time, I knew nothing else. Just terrible, lonely emptiness; combated with love and support. Finally the love and support won out, and my cries quieted. I hadn’t allowed myself to cry about this since my initial reaction to seeing my mother. I felt somehow refreshed after having let it all loose.

At long last, I drew back and wiped my face on my sleeve. Without saying a word, we went about eating. The food tasted bland, and my throat was still a little thick so it was hard, but I forced myself to swallow so the others wouldn’t worry. They didn’t ask what had brought the sudden outburst, and I didn’t speak. I didn’t want to. I just wanted to close my eyes and never open them again. What was the point in going on? Why even bother to try?

But then I opened my eyes and looked at Tara. Sweet Tara. She’d since turned 11, somewhere along our journey. She was still young, and most of this didn’t make any sense to her. She had held up reasonably well, after that first day when she had seen mother as well. A few times I had heard her crying in the night, but she never showed her sorrow in the light of day. She had straightened her shoulders and stood firm, in the face of such fear that I had felt cold inside. Some of it was young innocence, but the rest had been absolute bravery.

She had no future left that could be determined. And people like me had brought that about. People who were all too willing to sit back and be handed everything they needed, believing wholeheartedly that there was nothing else they should do. Nothing else they could do. Well, no more doing nothing.

I stood and went to the window, glancing out. The tracks in the dust were still there, they hadn’t been erased. I turned to my father. “I want to go see if I can figure out what’s up about this place. If there are others, surely there is a trace to them, a way to find them. You and Tara stay here.”

My father moved to stop me, but I waved away his hand. “Father, I still am young enough, I could play the innocent wanderer’s card. I think there is more to this town than seems. Especially the electricity. If it isn’t on, how is it working? And there are other things I think. Please, let me go find out what I can.” My father looked deep into my eyes, then nodded and stepped back. “Be careful though. We don’t know what we are up against.” I nodded. “I will father. I will.”

I walked out the front door, and stood on the top step of the building, scanning the tall, yet leaning buildings around us. For the first time, the decision was entirely up to me. I took a moment to think about where I thought I should go before I set off into the deep grey and somewhat brown dirt piled in the streets in an attempt to hide the town itself from the world around it.

Now

Traveling was slow, without the aid of a cart. My bones, frame, and nerves all took the blows of constant footfalls harshly, and the aching started and came on quicker than it used to. I had grown old sitting mostly comfortably on my stockpile, in a place where I hadn’t had to do much to protect myself. I had Alec to keep me safe, but I could do nothing for the aches and pains of traveling.

Going up the line of cities that had once lined the great Lake Michigan was a sad and disheartening journey. Most of these cities had been hit the hardest by the roving bands of murderers and thugs, most of them almost completely destroyed. The worst city in America right now was Green Bay. After their trip north, the largest group had taken residence there, and they had welcomed with open arms any who had wanted a piece of the action.

The going was slow, but we were steadily headed that way. We wouldn’t be going through the horrible city. We would skirt it to the east, along the lake bed that had long since been exposed to the open elements.

At the moment, we were camped out at the edge of Zion. This was the last town before we entered Wisconsin. I was sitting on a rusted car that squatted weakly against the side of a building, watching the blue-grey sky turn with wisps of clouds slowly trailing above the world.

It had been about a week since we had left Chicago, when I had taken a last look back at the lumbering city. It would surely be the last time I would look upon those crumpled, brown, humbled buildings; rotting away in defiance of those who had built them so many ages ago.

I drew in a deep breath and held it a moment, before releasing it in a cleansing wash of relief. My companion was currently out exploring the deeper reaches of this town. It was smaller than most of those we normally passed through, but it had been emptying long before the plague as the edges of Lake Michigan had started retreating. With the lake ebbing, there was little to keep people in Zion, whose very name proclaimed superiority over other towns.

And so the city had been aging fast for longer than most other places. The up side was that it didn’t seem like such a terrible place. Of course it had still been burned by the riot that had passed through, but there had been a lot less to burn, and nothing to hold their interest. It was already empty of people, and there never had been food rations here. The plague had never seen this town with anyone in it to kill.

I grunted softly as I heaved my body up off the trunk of this very old car, and strode in the general direction of our encampment on the eastern edge of the city. Each step felt like wading through water, my feet feeling heavy and my shoes weighing me down. I knew once we reached Canada, I would be able to afford better travel, but until then I was forced to carry my own weight, and the burden of it threatened to overwhelm me daily. Again I made myself breathe deep the fresh air around me. It was clearer here than in most places, but that was only because the earth had been free to cleanse this place. It was empty; no one lighting fires or displacing dust daily with the struggle to eke out a living in this wretched town. And so the raging winds and eddy of time had long since cleared it of foul smells and toxic things.

I trudged slowly back to our camp, where we had used the hoods from several cars to create walls and a roof, placing a large canvas atop it in case it should rain again. It was heading for autumn, so there were fewer rains now. But it was still more frequent than before the Old World had ended.

When I was within seeing range of the camp, I was surprised to see my companion already there. A small plume of smoke wafted up towards the sky, caught on a light breeze that carried it away from me. As I neared him, I could see a white board behind him, against one of the car hoods. He gestured towards it, a smile on his face. “Look what I’ve found, Cam!” His excitement was clear on his face. I couldn’t help chuckling. He reminded me so much of Damien. My face fell at the thought. Damien. Ugh. My throat clogged and I pretended to wipe sand from my eyes as I bit back tears. I wouldn’t think about him yet. Not yet. Later, when I had to write about him, I would allow myself to grieve. I couldn’t right now.

I put the smile back on my face as I came within the area we had cleared out to use as our camp. I had told him little of that time in my life, and there was no reason to say anything when he was so happy with himself. He showed me a set of old looking markers. “I got them wet, and they work! I know it’s an idle use of such precious water, but it’s so fun!” I nodded and allowed myself to be caught up in his innocent enthusiasm.

For a time, we played at drawing on the board, using it to play a picture game we’d made up to help with his studies. I would write a word, and he would do his best to draw a picture of what he thought it looked like.

Then

I stood on a street behind the courthouse, trying my hardest to look invisible. I was tailing the man who had so far been our escort in this town. He kept stopping and looking around warily, as though he knew I was there, but didn’t know exactly where. He had stopped in the middle of the street before me, glancing down its length and edging closer to the buildings on the other side.

My brows scrunched together as I studied that side of the street. The buildings didn’t end. There were no ‘blocks,’ and I certainly didn’t see any roads or alleys. There didn’t seem to be any way around these buildings for as far as I could see in both directions. I watched intently to see what the man would do.

After a long moment, he walked up to one of the buildings, opened the door, and entered.

I waited for what seemed like an eternity for him to come back out, glancing nervously down the road. No one else came, but he did not return either. Finally I followed him. Going up some stairs, I pulled open the door, and went into the apartment building.

There was nothing there… I stared down the hallway, my blood pounding in my head. If I got caught, I’d surely be in trouble. I just didn’t know what kind of trouble. The hallway was empty, appearing the same as the building I had been in previously. I followed the hallway to the end, where it turned right and continued along the back of the building. I could see that it turned again, probably leading back around to another door out. Walking slowly down the hall, I could see light coming from the bottom of a door planted squarely in the middle of the hall, leading to the back of the building.

Stopping in front of it, I placed my hand on the smooth door. It was made of real wood! Just like the railing in the courthouse. I took a deep breath in and opened the door. My eyes beheld a sight I never thought I’d see. People! So many people. There were hundreds of tiny houses back in there, in a large almost endless courtyard, surrounded by the looming buildings of the town. In the very center of the courtyard was a garden, perhaps a mile square. And best of all, things GREW in it! There were so many green and growing things in that garden, and the smell of it. It smelled rich. It was heavy and smelled like clean dirt! The ground was brown and firm.

I stood rooted to the spot, my mouth wide open as were my eyes. I let out a soft ‘oh’ as I stared at those wonders. There were people tending to the garden, some of them spraying water on the plants. They were actually using water to care for their plants. I wondered that they did not use it for themselves. Who cared about the plants, people could use that water.

A heavy hand fell largely on my shoulder, causing me to startle and turn. The scraggly man stood beside me, glaring down at me. Except, he didn’t look so messy now. He had combed his hair and put on fresh clothing, and he smelled clean. His teeth too had taken a surprising turn for the better, even and almost white. I stared at him in confusion.

His expression changed slowly, softening and smoothing out. Finally he nodded. “Young man, come, let me show you the wonders of Waterville.”

I had no choice as his hand commanded me to enter the hidden village, my eyes darting to all the different surprises at once. As we walked down a worn path amongst the garden and houses, I stared in awe. There were a few trees, some of which were heavy laden with fruits; bushes ripe with berries; corn that reached past the tallest man. Towards one wall was a large pen, which had an assortment of noises from within. Peering through a gap in the boards, I could see animals (real animals!). I could see sheep, pigs, cows, chickens, goats, and even a few rabbits. And the water again. There were troughs of it, buckets of it, and barrels over full.

Turning to follow the man once more, I was in absolute astonishment. He led me to a house at the edge, and bid me to enter. The house itself seemed to have been pieced together from scraps of other houses, likely taken from the insides of some of the apartments in the city. It was built well though, it seemed pretty sturdy. The door was real too, like all the apartment doors I had seen here.

In the building, it did not have a floor, but was open to the dirt beneath it. The walls were painted a bright blue, and the ceiling was white. There was a light bulb in the ceiling, but also on the walls were brackets with torches in them, held a small distance away from the wall itself. The higher shelves in the room held candles as well.

In the middle of the room was a small table, with four chairs at it. The man motioned for me to sit at it before he disappeared through a curtain hung over an opening on the opposite side of the room from where we had entered. I could just barely hear him talking, and a distinctly female voice answering.

A moment later he reappeared and sat across from me. “So this is it, the true Waterville. As it’s been for the last hundred years.” I raised an eyebrow. “A hundred years? You have been hidden here all this time? And no one has come looking for you?” He shook his head. “See, it was a brilliant plan. It was carried out by the whole township.

“The leaders of the city could tell that something bad was happening in the world. With world war three ended for quite a while now, they knew it was just a matter of time before something else terrible happened. And so they began planning. Over the course of several years, space was cleared. There are, within this area, roughly eight square miles of free land. It’s grown since then; they started out with a simple four square miles. But planning has been continuous, because growth was of course expected.”

As he said that a small woman came out of the curtained area, largely and quite obviously pregnant. She carried two bowls, which she set on the table. Her stern expression softened when she saw me. “Poor child,” she said. “To think, never a real meal. You’ve grown and lived on rations haven’t you?” The way she said the word ‘ration’ you’d think she meant sewer water. I nodded, glancing at the bowl. It held a white-yellow substance that was all creamy and warm… The steam coming from it got in my nose and at first I jolted back, but then drew close. It smelled… Wonderful. The woman gestured. “Go on then, eat it. It’s soup. Creamy potato soup.”

My mouth watering, I picked up the spoon from the bowl and watched as the soup dripped off it. I took a bite, and the tastes of it flooded my system. It sent waves of pleasure from my tongue to every other part of me. It was a deep flavor, and a smooth flavor… And I wanted more of it. I ate with fervor. It was the best thing that had ever happened to me. I couldn’t remember a single thing to compare. And I didn’t want to. I let my mind blur over with the thickly warm pleasure of eating this soup.

When it was gone, I sat back and sighed contentedly, and a little disappointedly. My stomach was full though. I realized the man was watching me with an expression of amusement, and yet a hint of sorrow. He was eating his soup a little slower than I had, but he still finished quickly.

The woman shook her head, took the two bowls and disappeared again behind the curtain. “Is this how you’ve lived then? In lush heaven while the rest of the world destroyed itself?” The man shook his head. “It seems wonderful, but it has its problems and hardships. No one sits around. We all work, we do our fair share. Some of us gather things from the outside world, others stay and tend to the garden and the animals. We work from sunup, to sundown. There are no days off. We regulate it so no one has to work more than anyone else, we all have our jobs to do.

“And we are constantly expanding. We have some buildings set on wheels, and as we move, we take them and place them between buildings the next row over. But as we grow out, we have to fill in gaps, so we have to jack other building up, or take them apart and completely reconstruct them. The only way to be safe is to keep it so no one can come in. Once the expansion is done for the cycle, we take apart the buildings that were there, and move them. Then we tend to the land where those buildings had been. We have to fill in the basements, move away all the piping and wiring and such, before we can use the land. And power is limited, so we have to do most of the work with our hands, or the non-electric tools we’ve developed.”

I shook my head in wonder. “And how do you do it? The non-power, and the power?” The man smiled.

“Well, the ‘non-power’ is the easy part. We put things together, and see what we can do with them. Or we think of something we could really use, and try to build it. There are people whose sole job is to create new and helpful things for us.

“Now the ‘power’ bit, that’s the real cookie. See, that was a very brilliant and insightful thing our leaders thought of, way before they ever started carrying out their plans. It’s all solar! The whole thing. All those lights that come on at night, they’re solar powered. And triggered.

“There is a huge network of solar panels atop the roofs of the buildings. Each building is completely covered in them. And they hid it beautifully. They had set aside large funds from taxes and such, and they passed the whole thing off as ‘building improvements.’ And so they ordered and received hundreds of thousands of panels. Enough to power the whole city, even including expansion.

“When the plague hit, thousands died. Even right here. We did a better job of quarantining than the rest of the nation, or overseas, but we still took a pretty hefty blow. About seven eighths of our population died of it. Then, we just faked out that the rest either died or moved on, and we’ve been left alone for almost a hundred years. We get a straggler pass through on occasion, but for the most part nothing. We do our best to scare away anyone who ends up here at night. People who come through in the daytime tend to keep on going once they realize there are no World-Food storages here. But those lights at night, they draw people light moths.”

He shook his head. “Which is where my ‘scary old bum’ routine comes in. It’s my job to scare people away. There are a few others too. We would have chased you away too, but the council decided we’d like to study that cart of yours. We thought it might be nice to have a few of those ourselves, to make it just a little easier to get more done in a day.” I raised my head a little and glanced toward the door. “So where is the cart?” He shrugged.

“The researchers are still studying it. They should be done quickly though. Mostly they are tracing images of it, and probably testing it for weight and durability.” He raised a hand to stall my comments. “Don’t worry. You will get it back in good shape. They’d never think of destroying it. They’ll put some sacks of apples on it, maybe drag it through a bumpy field or something. It’ll come out okay.”

I looked at him for a moment. “Why have you guys hidden from the world? Why not let them learn from you, or try to live amongst you?” He shook his head. “Because the majority of the world is still under the idea that they are number one, and the only one. Too many people would try to leech off us, or steal from us. If people knew we were here, they would ransack us. They would take all the water, and waste it lavishly. They would slaughter all of the animals, and trample the gardens for lack of knowledge about what treasures lay within them.” He smiled softly.

“No boy, it is best if no one knows yet that we are here. When people are to a point where they can restrain themselves, and pitch in to help, when they are willing to actually work hard to live, then we will let the world know we are here. For now, we try to improve our living more every day, and we try to get better at the things we do and learn how to do more.”

I nodded. He was right. I could just picture the mobs we’d seen if they saw this place. The first thing they would do would be to run through all these beautiful plants, scoop up the water and douse themselves in it, roast all the animals in one night, and then make waste of the people who lived here. They would take this as their home, and turn it into a desolate wasteland within hours. I shuddered.

“Yes, I see what you mean. It is good that you’ve been so well protected. If only the world’s leaders had been as thoughtful as the ones who led this town, perhaps then the world would not be in the state it is right now.” I forced my thoughts to turn elsewhere, lest they lead to tears again at the thought of my mother.

A short time later, a man knocked on the door to the little home, and my host went to open it. A short man stood there, at ease and somewhat self-satisfied. “We are done with the cart now, if the lad would like to have it back.” I stood, barely looking down at the man. “Yes please.” He nodded and led us back to the main entrance to this haven. My cart stood there waiting.

And yet, the cart seemed to be different. There were extra braces underneath, and an extra wheel in the front. It was just barely higher than the others, still touching the ground but just barely.

“We’ve made some improvements to it. The braces will increase the load bearing capabilities, and the extra wheel is for bumps. If you go through a dip, that wheel will take some weight off the need to bring it back to level, so it can make it through somewhat rougher terrain than before. Also, not so noticeably, we replaced one of the main boards with a sturdier one, as it was close to collapse. And we’ve saturated the whole thing with a water-resistant substance. I know it doesn’t rain much now, but according to our weather-persons, it is only a matter of time before elemental inclinations lead to increased abundances of rain.” With that, the little man turned and strode away, without waiting for any comments or thanks. I could hear him muttering under his breath as he walked off.

My guide shook his head, a small laugh accompanying his smile. “Science types. An odd bunch, but without them where would we be?” I placed a hand on the cart and stroked it. It was somewhat smooth. I hadn’t realized just how attached I’d grown to this cart until now. I realized in this moment, that this cart had become the closest thing to home, since our hasty flight. Not knowing where it was had been a little bit nerve-wracking.

Now that I had it back, I felt my shoulders relaxing, and my arms loosening. I breathed a little more easily. The man nodded. “I know just how you feel. It’s hard to have something missing, isn’t it?” I hadn’t realized just how plainly my face showed my relief. Giving a half smile I nodded. “Yeah, it’s good to have it back.” I stepped back and let my hand fall to my side. “I’d better be going, before my father worries at my absence. Though I wonder…” I looked at him full on. “Would it be possible for us to stay here? To live amongst you?”

The man gave a sad smile. “I’m sorry, son. But no, I don’t think you could. The current generations are still too used to having it easy. You need to live the world a little. When you’ve gone more than a year without the ration packages, you come back and we’ll see what we can do. You need to first figure out how to work for your survival, and learn to enjoy doing it. Right now, you would too easily try to fall into old habits, and no one here would stand for it.” I didn’t understand.

“But… How can you turn us away? We are in need. We’ve nowhere to really go. What are we to do?” The man shrugged. “Listen, young man. I’d sure take you in in a heartbeat. But in a life like this, there can be no room for the ‘I’ factor. We each work hard for what we have. We don’t expect anyone else to do our jobs, and we certainly don’t borrow. We trade. Hour for hour, job for job, we trade. We have a way of life here not seen for centuries. You wouldn’t be able to just fall into line and live the way we do. That soup you ate cost me half a day’s work. How would you like to work hard in a field all day to be able to eat?

“I know it sounds wonderful to be here where you’d be safe, and have real food to eat, and pure water. But there is a lot of hard work to it. Like I said though: when you have learned how to work hard for the things you need, and harder for the things you want; you go ahead and come back, and I will personally help you get in.” He reached out a hand to me. His eyes were somber. “Until that day, let’s say we were friends, hmm?”

I looked at his outstretched hand for a moment, and then looked deep into his eyes. He genuinely cared, but he also stood firmly by what he had said. Finally I nodded and shook his hand.

Without another word, he led me and my cart around to a wide door, and helped me get my cart through it. The pulling was much easier now, thanks to the improvements these people had done to it. It rolled smoothly along the pavement. There were cracks in the roads, but the cart passed these over as easily as smooth ground. It did bump up and down a little, but it was still easier to pull than it had been. That would make the going easier.

The man left me as I passed through an alley on the other side of the street, waving farewell from the top of the stairs leading into the apartment building. To anyone who passed by, this was a run down, destroyed hovel of buildings that clung to this earth like rust on an old car. There was nothing to tell that anywhere in this world, let alone right here not fifty feet away, there stood a utopia of growing, thriving, flourishing green things producing true food for people to eat. No ration packages, no raiding parties, no real worries.

Sighing, I turned finally and pulled my cart back in the direction of the apartment building. I had decided it was best not to tell my father the whole truth about this place. He would be angry, and likely try to ruin it. He wouldn’t destroy anything, for sure. But he would storm in there and try to make them let us stay. I did understand why we couldn’t, but he might not. Especially if it might mean safety for Tara and me.

When I got back to the apartment, my father stood waiting just inside the door and came rushing out to meet me. He threw his arms around me and held me a moment, then drew back to get a good look at the cart. “What’ve they done to it?” I shrugged. “They fixed it up a little.” He looked at me. “So what’s the deal, son? What is it about this place that seems a little off?” I looked away a moment, through the buildings around us. The place didn’t seem empty anymore, nor did it seem scary. Indeed, all these rows of empty buildings seemed like rows of soldiers ready to defend in the face of battle. I shook my head though.

“There are many people living here,” I said. “Hidden amongst the buildings. The power is from a solar source, which has kept the lights running since before the plague. They turn on when the sun leaves, and off when the sun returns. They said that some people come through every now and again, but they scare them away. They just want to be left alone. They work hard to survive here.”

My father nodded. “Then let’s go. We’ll leave them in peace. They’ve been good to us, so it’s the least we can do.” As my father turned to go back into the building before us, I felt a deep moment of guilt about lying to my father. I hadn’t outright spoken a lie, but I had made him think that these people were as desolate as any other, and that there was nothing here we would want.

I brushed it aside though. The man had pretty much told me that we weren’t wanted here, and would not be welcomed kindly. Mostly, he had told us to leave. So I was just making sure things flowed smoothly.

I helped my father load things up and we rolled the cart to the northern edge of the city and prepared to leave. The sun was still pretty high in the sky, so we had a while to walk before darkness returned. With a last glance back, we took off once more across the empty, barren land before us. My heart was surprisingly happy as we walked along, unexpected warmth within making me feel pleased. If there was a place in this world where the green things grew, where people helped each other, and worked for a living, then perhaps there was hope for the world after all. Maybe, things weren’t as back as I had thought. The world might once more be a thriving place, full of life.

Now

I smiled as I put the pen down. It had been so many years since that first time I had set foot in Waterville, and the thought of it still brought a smile to my lips. That little bit of ‘Eden’ as I’d come to call it. When me and Alec had passed through on our way to Chicago, we had been welcomed with open arms by the grandson of that man. He himself had long since passed away, but the story of my first visit there had become kind of a fireside story, enhanced by the fact that I had visited there a few times since. There were other people there who knew me, and held a special affection to me, but I won’t mention them as yet. That’s a different part of this accounting.

My companion returned at that moment, a curious smile coming to his lips as he saw me. “I haven’t seen you smile like that since Waterville. What’s up?” I nodded, running a tired hand over the pages before me. “It is Waterville, for sure. I’ve written the story of the first time I went there.” He nodded. “Ah I see. And was it as beautiful then as it is now?” I shook my head. “It was more beautiful then. But that might simply be because it was the first time I saw trees and animals in person. We weren’t rich; we never did go to see the wild-life reservations on the outer islands.” He nodded as he set about preparing a lunch for us.

I had told him all about the sad and sorry state the world was already in before the final collapse, so he knew what I meant about the reservations. I had seen animals since, and I had seen growing things, but that first, wonderful experience, still lived as one of the brightest and happiest in my mind. It was something I looked back on during hard times, or during cold and barren travels.

And this travel was somewhat barren. Though out in the flatlands and amongst the ruins of what had once been majestic forests, bits of growth were beginning to struggle their way back into our lives, it was still for the most part empty and lifeless. Still every now and again, a bit of green would catch my attention, and I’d turn to see the tiniest little leaves poking out of some hidey hole that provided meager and needed relief from the overbearing sun.

At the moment, we were outside of Pleasant Prairie, just north of the state line between Illinois and Wisconsin. We were taking our time heading north. I used every rest stop to write a little, if even only a paragraph or so. Every second I could put pen to paper, was used gainfully.

Pleasant Prairie was a smaller town yet than even Zion had been, but perhaps it only seemed that way. There were markings in the ground, and clearings, where it seemed that other houses might once have stood but had long since either crumbled away or been hauled off. I didn’t know why anyone would take pieces of houses with them, but that is what evidently has happened here since the last time I’d been through. I couldn’t remember exactly, but it did seem as though the place had shrunk considerably since then.

Anyway, what really mattered was that right now it was small. There was very little left, probably just a few thousand buildings in all stood within the city. The land here was mostly flat, but there were some pretty impressively rolling hills.

At one time, as pictures I’d seen as a boy had shown, there had been tall grass on all of them. Green and lush, waving gently in the wind. Rustling as if an invisible giant were running their hands through it. Now though, sand blew along the tops of them, mostly grey but also gaining something of a yellow tint. Almost as if even the sand were regaining life.

I smiled to myself at the thought of it. The world was like winter’s flower, all grey and closed over, covered with dust. Slowly, with the passage of time, as people left it alone or tended to it, life was renewing and someday perhaps these fields would once again overflow with an abundance of green and growing life, spackled with wildflowers, teeming with birds and insects and other creatures of the plains.

And I wouldn’t be here to see it. I wouldn’t, but maybe he would.

Alec caught me looking at him and turned full to see if I needed anything. I waved dismissively and turned back to my writing. I let the warm sun soak my back as I picked up my pen, and once again traced out the long-past surroundings of my youth.

Then

We had been traveling for a few days, the steady rhythm of walking and pulling the cart blurring the length and passage of the days. All I could really remember of the last few days were foggy images of the ground sliding past my feet, and the steady ache of growing muscles.

We had passed through Toledo, and then we were there. At the edge of what had once been Lake Michigan. Now though, there was barely any trace that once there had been such a large body of water only a step away. What gave it away was the slope of the land. It gently eased away from this spot, deepening gradually and yet quickly at the same time. For a vast distance, empty land stretched onward. I could not even see the end of it. There was dried silt on the ground, hardened and cracked from the passage of time.

We stood staring out across this grand display of the effects man-kind had had on this world of ours. Greedily, people had wasted and squandered this water away, until it was a huddled and beaten form of itself. There was supposed to still be some water to Lake Michigan, but it had move miles away from here.

We were going to walk out across the desert that absence of water had created, to what had once been Pelee Island. It used to be a part of Canada, but the changing lands had brought about its induction into America. The border of Canada was supposed to be just to the north of it though. They had straightened their line out a little. They bought up vast quantities of the northern half of most of the states, and sold off that small section of water with the single tiny island in it. No one really knew why. The government of America was so busy thinking about their war they didn’t bother to really care. And with the money from selling off the large stretch of American soil, they had funded their war.

The going on this land was actually a little easier than it had been on the rest of the ground. It was harder and firmer than the dusty dirt we had been walking on. Every now and then we would come across skeletons, both human and otherwise. Some of the fish skeletons were scary sizes, the sizes of small boats. Definitely big enough to swallow a person…

I shook my head to erase the image. The layout of the land was very interesting, a nice change from the relatively consistent landscape we’d been traveling through for ages. There were tall pillars of rock, deep crevices lined with many types of shells, and tall scraggly ‘bushes’ that were long dead. The bushes, my father told me, had been underwater plants. Long exposed to the sun and open air, they had died where they stood.

At long last, we reached Pelee Island. The ground sloped sharply, coming to a more gradual stop as it reached the level the Island had been before the Lake had left it standing without a reason. No longer a true Island, the novelty had worn off, people had moved, and it was abandoned. On the ground around the island, there were piles and hovels of what had once been docks and ships, now broken and dried out. On the side of one of them, I could see the word ‘Ferry’ painted in what seemed to have been red paint. I shook my head.

My father had stopped and was checking a piece of paper. It had been left inside the cart, in the food storage box I’d built, hidden amongst the food. It had proven to be a map to the island, with a door clearly marked on it. This was supposed to be the fallout shelter my father had heard of.

My guess was that the science guy had put it there, in the hopes that we would take it and go there. Probably it was his way of helping us find somewhere believed to be safe, so that we could hide there from the dangers of the world.

Now though, it was hard to tell where there might be an entrance into this place. The shelter had been built many years ago, after the water had fallen, but before the plague. After the plague, I doubted there’d been many left alive to tell where it had been. Possibly others might have hidden in there when the plague made its initial appearance, but they probably had long since left.

I noticed something though, almost right away. The boats almost seemed to be pointing. As I looked closer at them, my eyes wanted to believe that all the boats were laid out in a pattern where they arched around one boat in particular. The one that said ‘Ferry’. It was laid out almost perfectly, with the tip of it pointed directly at the rock wall of the sloping land. Except it didn’t really slope there, so much as rise sharply toward the old water level. I believe it had been referred to as a drop-off back then.

I pointed it out to my father, who tilted his head a little as he looked at it. “Yes, you’re right, son. It does look to be pointing at the wall.”

Leaving our cart at the back of the boat, we walked around the edge of it. I ran my hand along the side of the boat’s bottom. In its glory days, this part of the boat had been well under water, green with slime and smoothly parting the large body of water. Now it lay exposed to the sun, dried and bleached. But if I was right, it still served a purpose to lead the way to safe grounds.

Around the tip of the boat, we could see the wall of the drop-off where it met the ground. A large metal door broke the surface of the wall, square and rusted. They layers of rock stood out in different shades of red, brown, and orange, with streaks of black, green, and white appearing randomly. You would never know to look at it that there was a huge facility under there for hiding people away from the world. And now, it would fulfill its purpose.

With effort, we dragged the two heavy doors open. They were each a foot thick, and six feet tall by four feet wide. Plenty of room for pulling our cart in, but we wanted to inspect it first. The door opened on a hallway that stretched into a darkness deep within. When we stepped inside however, lights came on. They lined the hallway alternatingly, about every fifteen or twenty feet. A soft orange, they just barely shed enough light to show the way.

Carefully, we followed the hallway. It branched off to several other hallways, but we stayed in the main one hesitantly afraid to go any other way. A while later though, the passage came to a split, with two directions for options. A map was hung on the wall across from us, and we took a moment to look at it. I saw that the hall to the right led to some stairs that would bring us all the way up to the top of the island above us, to the open ground. Following it, we reached the surface about half an hour later. To be out in the sun again was unexpectedly pleasing. I wasn’t too satisfied to have been in those tight and binding corridors.

My father nodded to himself, then us. “According to the map down there, there was a food storage room just full of food and water packages. Enough to last just the three of us for years. We’ll stay here. No more running, or fighting; no more shooting, and no more worrying.”

We explored every section of the fallout shelter, top to bottom. The lights were charged by solar panels that had been mounted atop the island, the power from them stored in huge battery banks near the bottom of the shelter. There had been thousands of rooms within the complex, obviously meant to sustain the populace for at least fifteen years, possibly longer. The food rations and water were stockpiled in a few different areas of the shelter, strategically placed to divide the people up into four sections. The biggest room though was not filled with food, water, clothes, or even everyday items as most rooms were, but books. The walls were lined with them, and there were so many shelves crammed into that room that I could hardly walk between them, and even had to turn sideways to pass through some of them. The room itself seemed as if it might have comfortable swallowed a two story building half the size of a city block, without feeling it. There were no empty spaces on any of the shelves.

And so, for lack of alternative options, we read. For days, weeks, months… We saw years pass within that hidey hole. Oh occasionally we’d venture out and explore one of the surrounding cities in the distance, but for the most part we stayed right where we were. There was more than enough power for the things we’d missed; showers, doing laundry, and cooking our ration food.

Sometimes people would pass by, usually in twos and threes, casting hopeful glances our way. We were so well hidden though that no one ever ventured close enough to bother trying to find us, let alone climb to the top of this seemingly insurmountable fortress that appeared for all to see like a long abandoned island which hadn’t seen mankind in too long.

Now

Looking up from my paper, I saw that the sun was near to setting. I put my pen away and stood, stretching a little to ease the stiffness in my shoulders. I had been sitting in this same spot for quite a while now, and so my legs were aching from inactivity.

I was mildly surprised my companion hadn’t yet returned, but it wasn’t dark yet so I started the fire for the night and settled back to wait. As the burning inferno in the sky was taking a last peek at the world before passing on to the other side, I began to worry. He had never been this far into the eve without coming back before. My chest slowly tightened with worry. Finally I grabbed up a torch and set fire to it from my campfire. Turning, I set out amongst the skeletal trees reaching black or white branches high into the sky. He had left a pretty clear trail as he passed through the trees, scattering dead underbrush in a wake.

After a bit, I reached the edge of the city. The trees blended with the city so that the entrance was gradual before the trees were completely gone. Fires and lack of water had killed these trees, unlike the majority which had been logged off.

Once in the town, it was hard to really tell where my companion had gone. There was little to mark his progress along the empty streets, other than the occasional spot where I could tell that debris had been moved to create passage. And then I saw him. Or rather, I saw a leg draped over the trunk of a tree that had fallen over ages ago and decomposed most of the way, the weight of the leg bending the tree’s length further down. Rushing over, I saw Alec lying on his back on the other side of the tree, wedged between it and a car on the other side. His eyes were closed, but it was easy to see he still breathed as his chest rose and fell with ragged air.

Leaning a hand against the car, I reached down and gently shook his head. No response. I was invariably given an image of when my father had lost consciousness. I couldn’t move him by myself then, for the youth of my frame, and now I couldn’t possibly move Alec, for the age of it. I shook my head at the irony.

Again I shook him, calling his name. At last he stirred. He opened his eyes and glanced up at me, his expression not quite comprehending. “Wha-?” He looked around and pulled himself up weakly, losing his balance and leaning over the side of the trunk as he put his leg down on the ground. I could see now that there was blood on the ground where he’d been. Reaching out, I tilted his head to get a look at it, causing him to hiss sharply inward and yank his head away.

“What happened?” Alec shook his head slowly, wincing. “I fell, that’s all. I fell. Tripped going over that tree. Dunno why I didn’t just go around it. I thought I saw a cat.” I looked around searchingly, but saw nothing. “A cat?” The dubiousness in my voice was clear. “Yeah, I thought it was. Might not have been though. Probably not. Of all things, there isn’t likely to be a cat. Not a real one anyway.”

I helped him to his feet, as much as I could, and slowly we walked back to our little encampment. Once there, Alec stretched out gratefully along the makeshift bed he’d dragged over. It was the back seat to a car, which he had put blankets over for padding and warmth. Our journey northward was bringing us into cooler and cooler temperatures, especially with autumn in the air.

I insisted on cleaning the wound on the back of his head, while he lay on his side. I did the cooking that night, heating some of our ration food to eat. We picked up rations as we went through various towns, supplementing occasionally with other things we’d find along the way. Occasionally a large bird, or a rabbit. Findings were scarce, as there wasn’t really anything for the animals to eat. The birds got on just fine, as there were bugs for them to eat. And in the cycle, bugs had dead birds to eat. Rabbits were around occasionally, because in some spots there was enough life in a plant to make an attractive feast for them.

But for the most part, rations were still the main food source for those who tried to survive in the middle grounds. That was what I called the united states anymore. The middle ground. Because I had found that things green and growing tended to be either way to the north, where Canada was, or to the extreme south down in California, Texas, and Florida. As you got close to Mexico, it too was overgrown and flourishing. Probably because it had been empty a lot longer than the states had been. The plague had pretty much wiped Mexico out, leaving only the smaller places unaffected. And they didn’t afford the ration packages, so they probably weren’t immune to it.

At any rate, Alec went to sleep early, and I sat up watching him. I wasn’t sure if he really was okay or if he was just putting up a brave front. He slept soundly, but healthily. Finally I figured that if anything was going to happen to him, it already would have, so I stretched out on my own car seat and fell asleep.

Then

For five years, we hid out in the old abandoned fallout shelter, while the world drifted around us. Every once in a while a reminder would pass by, showing us that we were not the only people left. Sometimes straggling groups of twos and threes, other times huge camps of raiders. They would camp out in the middle of the dry river bed in the spring and fall, or by pillars of rocks in searing summer and blustery winter.

Most of the time, we stayed around our living space, but sometimes we would venture out to a town to see how things were going. We never had to go for supplies, the building had been meant to house about a hundred thousand persons for at least fifteen years. We had showers, heating, air conditioning, and hot food. We didn’t have to start any fires, or fight to the death for a scrap of food. So there was never any reason to even want to go anywhere else.

But it couldn’t last for long. A little over the age of twenty, as the cool breezes of spring were relenting to the hot winds from the south turning the season to summer, my father and I took a journey into town. The nearest town was Port Brighton. It had been Clinton, before the third world war, but in honor of the president who had supposedly ended the war, it had been changed.

A man had set up a ‘business’ there. In return for being left alone, he allowed trade to be made. He had just about anything you could want in today’s economy, but he also knew everything that was going on in America. No one ever got word from overseas, or from down in Mexico.

Tara, being sixteen now, we let her stay at the fallout shelter by herself. She was safer there, than where a young girl as herself would attract too much unwanted attention. And so, my father and I dressed ourselves down as much as we could, wearing the same worn and grungy clothes we always did. We figured if it looked like we never had other things, then we wouldn’t be an object of interest.

Our cart had long since given up and quit, collapsing into a heap of rotted wood and somewhat rusted metal. We had taken it apart and tossed the scraps out with the boats in their eternal slumber. It had been a nice little cart, and it was sad to see it go. We hadn’t been able to really use it for a while though, nor did we need to, as all of us were full grown and we had more food and water than we could have reasonably transported let alone needed to.

As we crossed back over the dry lake bed, we rounded our journey to bring us in from a deceivingly different direction. That way it would be harder for anyone to trace us back to the shelter. We had long since made a ‘clear path’ to a place further North and west from the city, so all we had to do was find that path and clear our tracks across the dusty ground, and it would look to anyone else that we had traversed the path many times over the years north to south and back.

As we neared the town, we could see that there were a few stragglers sitting around in the shade. Some of them were eating or drinking, others were sleeping. Perhaps twenty in all were spread out within the mostly empty town. A few others had settled in the town as well, but they kept somewhat hidden so I wasn’t sure exactly where they were.

It wasn’t hard to find the shop keep. He had broken the walls down between several shops on what had once been a strip mall, and filled every available shelf and space with stuff. He had hung huge hand-painted signs all over the place, with pictures of water and food packets crudely depicted. A few signs also had what was probably intended to be clothes, and back sacks, but I wasn’t sure. He had lots of other stuff too, but he obviously wasn’t sure how to draw them. Drawing had been something of a lost art in the wake of Glass-COM, so it wasn’t surprising that the man couldn’t draw well. Not many could, or even bothered to try.

As we neared the front entrance to his ‘shop’, a few scruffy looking persons of undefined gender shuffled out of the way like mice. Inside, the place looked about the same as it had last month when we had come through. The room held something of a yellow tint, while sunlight from the tall windows glinted off dust attempting to settle but never quite still. Shelves lined the walls, while aisles filled most available space.

Boxes, lamps, shades, sunglasses, picture frames with and without pictures, toys, dolls, tools, dishes and pans, utensils, clothes, books, and just plain junk took up most of the room, while bicycles, skateboards, skis, snowboards, and other recreational transportations sat in aisles, hung from the walls, or crouched on top of shelves. At one end of the room, three large couches had been arranged for ‘socializing,’ and at the other, a counter and chair were set up for the Keep. That was all he called himself, the Keep.

Behind the man’s counter was a very large room, which he always kept locked. This was where he kept the food rations, water, and weapons. I had ‘bought’ a very large knife from him at my nineteenth birthday, with a case to keep the blade safe. I had traded him a small sail from one of the many boats forced to ground with the retreating water. Likely it had been traded to a traveler to use as protection from the elements, rather than as a sail.

The man himself sat in his chair, facing the long room with a scowl that said ‘even if my eyes aren’t on you in particular, I know what you’re doing.” He watched his stuff pretty closely. And rightly so. A few persons had been shot to protect his stuff from being taken. He was a very large, very dangerous looking man, whom I never would have had the nerve to mess with.

We pretended to peruse the wares for sale, turning things to look at them, before making our way to the front. It was kind of like a dance really. The Keep knew we were mostly here for info, and we knew we weren’t fooling him, but we did it anyway, and he watched us do it without a word. As we finally neared the counter, the man heaved his bulk forward. He wasn’t so much fat, as he was muscular. He had these forearms the size of half my chest, and his own chest could have easily hidden me behind him. He was chubby over the muscle, a surprise that anyone could be such these days.

“Anything I can help you find?” His voice was as deep as he was big, grating and brusque. My father glanced back at the wares, before turning to face the shop keep. “Well, do you have a bottle of don?” I still hadn’t quite figured that one out. It was some kind of joke between the two of them, about an alcoholic drink that hadn’t been available to the general public for thirty years now.

“Not as of recently, no.” The Keep’s look betrayed no actual sign of humor, except that his eyes lightened a little. My father nodded his head as if in thought, then leaned a casual arm against the high counter. “So what’s the word on the street then?” The eyes darkened a little. He sat up straighter and licked his lips slightly.

“I hear there’s another gang coming this way. Gonna patch up shop in another hour or so, batten down the hatches. If I were you, I’d take that boy o’ yours and get back to that young’un you hide in the wings. If you’re based up north, I’d maybe even take it to the east a touch, till they’re gone.” Groups didn’t rove as much as they used to, but every now and then one of them would decide their area had become boring, or they’d run out of stores and move on for more.

We didn’t really need anything from this man, but we always made a ‘purchase’ anyway, just to keep the man happy with us. He was tight mouthed as a general rule, but for us he spoke right up. He had gotten used to the routine by now, that if he told us what he knew, we would buy something from him. He usually made out better with what we gave him; we had any number of things to give him from our shelter.

This time, we traded him a pair of coveralls in decent condition for a hat for me and a roll-up sleeping mat which we would likely never use. As we were leaving the building, people began running past. It was clear from their haste and their exclamations that the gang we’d heard of was here already, ahead of expectation.

The shop Keep began pulling boards down over his windows, pulling ropes that caused huge tarps to drop piles of junk from the roof over the sides of the building. By the time he was done, I knew it would look like nothing more than a huge pile of rubble and burnt buildings. He had obviously done this before. This way, he wouldn’t have to move all of his stuff, and the gang would pass it by for lack of motivation to unbury the place. For a share of stores, various people who lived here would help him uncover it and put all the stuff back on the roof for the next batten down.

We hurried to the north; to get out of town before the gang could make it to us, so that we could be well on our way without them knowing that we’d even been there. Other people were rushing around us, running with things swaying from sacks on their backs.

And then we heard a shrill scream; from the north. We stopped in our tracks. Confused, my father turned his head back and forth, between north and south. For a moment, fear ran rampant on his face. Then he took hold of my arm, and dragged me back to the shop. I followed him as he dove between two car frames haphazardly jumbled against the wall of the building, then squeezed in through the front door.

Inside, there was barely any light to see by as the piles of junk outside had almost entirely walled the long room off from the sunlight outside. The door behind the counter was open, and the keep was fumbling with something in the dim light. Looking over his shoulder at us, he shook his head. “Get outta here!” The man’s whisper was an angry yell in the gloom.

My father shook his own head. “We can’t! There’s two groups meeting head-to-head!” The tall, gruff looking man paused what he was doing to stare at my father, then his eyes darted around in exasperated uncertainty. Finally he growled softly and motioned with his arm. “Get in here. If you take anything though, I’ll let you have it. This baby’s loaded.” My father nodded, took my thin arm in his, and pushed me toward the room behind the counter. I’d never actually been in the little room before, and my eyes flew around it to see what there was to see. Guns, knives, and other interesting sorts of weapons filled the room. It was darker in here than in the rest of the room as there were no windows here.

The giant of a man closed the door behind us, and motioned for us to be quiet. For the longest time, there was no sound other than an occasional scream from someone who had been caught on the outside and tried to outrun the barrage of angry people storming into this poor tiny city.

And then there was a tumult of noises.

The clang of metal on metal; the shrill scraping as it slid; crashing cracking shattering of wood, the piercing tinkle of glass breaking and landing… And the yelling and screaming as person after person either met or inflected a gruesome ending. And all there was to do was wait in the dark room, as the gruff man peered out through the small crack between door and frame with his long rifle pointing at the front of the store.

Now

We had spent a couple days in Oak Creek, after Alec had hit his head, allowing for his injury to scab over properly. I didn’t want to risk taking him into the middle grounds between here and Milwaukee. There were no towns between here and there, at least nothing left of any towns. There were a few hobbles of ruins to mark that some buildings had once stood there, but there was nothing else. Most of the little towns in Wisconsin had emptied out during the third world war, as the area had been hit pretty hard. Green Bay and Milwaukee had been devastated, but they had stood firm. The smaller towns though had seen a lot of their men joining forces, by mandate or by option, and so they had quickly vanished. The few left had finally succumbed during the plague. And years later, when that first roving group of destruction had swept northward, they had wiped away those towns to the barest of traces. Anything useable, such as boards and rock, cloth, all of it had been stripped away and taken with them, or long since scavenged. Everything else had been burned to ash, which had then been blown and scattered across the land.

Finally though, we had set out from there on the long trek to Milwaukee. That had been two days ago. Now, standing on a hill that loomed over the southwestern edge, it was sad indeed to see the city. A century ago it had been a massive, sprawling city. Buildings and houses rose and fell with the somewhat hilly landscape. And now it lay in ruins.

I pointed out to Alec where the three domes had been, shining white domes that rose into the sky high above the buildings around them. The domes had been brought down during the plague, when a suicide bomber had crippled them irreparably. I showed him where the baseball stadium had been, rebuilt on the site of the original stadium back in the 2500’s. The builders had said then that the stadium they’d built could withstand the test of time. But time had tested it, and it did not stand. It lay. Spread out for miles all around, as it had been completely destroyed during the riots at the end of the Old World.

Once, beautiful trees had filled this grand city, along with a small lake and many other natural beauties. Now though, there was nothing to show that anyone had lived here in ages. It was a devastated gathering of rolling hills, like old men huddled against the world.

I shook my head. It never ceased to amaze me just how much destruction there had been. How could people do these things? How could they so easily kill each other, burn the land, and scourge the cities? It made no sense to me. But then, I guess that was why I hadn’t joined them years ago when I had the chance. I wouldn’t be alive today, for sure. In-fighting tended to keep life spans relatively short within the gangs.

I turned my back against the destruction below; even after this many years still a heartache. I bid Alec to come and we left Milwaukee behind us. The road we followed was cracked, disheveled, and in some small patches missing altogether, but the majority of it was still there, an endless winding and stretching of blackish grey asphalt. The markings that had once adorned these roads had long ago dissolved as rain, wind, and blowing sand had slowly ground away at them. In some places, guard rails still stood as lonely sentries over bridges, and on corners. I had discovered a few bridges that still stood, spanning the distance between two ridges, but most had fallen to the bottoms of the ditches or ravines, and lay in eternal slumber like giant snake skins.

We spent the majority of the day skirting Milwaukee, intending to continue north and east toward Green Bay. The setting sun however decided that we would camp for the night on the outskirts of this city. As the land was bathed in brilliant reds and golden yellows, we set up for the night in a cement pipe in a hill side, a small fire for warmth at the very opening.

Then

I woke with a start, hands jolting outward in self-defense. Another hand met my arm and gently pushed it back toward me. “It’s ok son. I think the fight is over. There hasn’t been any noise for a while now.” I glanced in the direction my father’s voice had come from, all soft and comforting. I could just barely make out the outline of his face in the near dark, a foot away from my own. Turning the other way, I could see the Keep sitting full on the ground, his gun relaxed across his folded lap. His head was leaned against the wall, but I could see the whites of his eyes gleaming in the small amount of light coming in through the partially open door. The light was dimmer than it used to be, so obviously a good amount of time had passed since the fighting began. I hadn’t even realized I was falling asleep till I’d woken.

I shook my head gently to clear it, and then brought my aching frame to its feet.

Groaning softly, I stretched my arms upward, pulling my stomach and chest with them. Sighing, I lowered my arms and stood for a moment, listening. My father rose to join me. “What’s the plan?” My father shook his head. “I don’t know. I can’t tell if they’re gone or not…” The Keep got to his feet as well and hefted the gun onto his shoulder casually. “I say we should sit tight till morning, then figure out what’s going on there. We’ve ration and water, plenty of it.” I nodded. He was probably right. With the dimming light in the rest of the store, it was likely almost night right now anyway, we just had to wait for it to pass.

After my unexpected nap just now, I couldn’t possibly sleep, so I offered to keep first watch while the others caught up with me. Keep was reluctant to hand over his gun, but finally with a hard to conceal yawn, he held it out by the stalk for me to take.

The hours of night pass slowly, with little to mark its passage. The moon did not move as the sun did, starting out in different places in the sky, and ending sometimes well before the sun was up. It didn’t help that from this vantage, I could not even see the sky at all. The dark was simply dark. Although finally, I noticed that the sky was starting, just slightly, to lighten.

At long last, I woke my father and handed him the gun, laying down where he had been to top off my own sleep. There were only a few hours left till it could be considered morning, and my eyes were feeling gritty with lack of sleep.

I woke with a start as my father’s foot softly collided with my leg. “Oops, sorry,” he muttered. Looking up, I saw him stumble again as he retreated to the edge of the room. The Keep was holding the gun now, giving the room beyond the scant safety of our door a suspicious glare. “We need to move. The scavengers are like blood hounds. They can smell a hider from yards away.”

I got to my feet and stood behind him, glancing out of our hidey hole. “I agree, we should get out of here. I don’t think we should leave much for them to find either.” I jerked my head in the direction of our weapons cache for emphasis. He stared at me a moment, then heaved a sigh and nodded. “Yeah. Of course, you’re right. We should take as much of it as we can, for sure all of the guns.”

There were three long rifles other than the one the keep was already holding, along with five pistols and a shotgun with a really short barrel. We stuffed the pistols in the back sacks, and the keep pulled out one of his own sacks from beneath the shelving. It was full of stuff, but he shoved things over and made room for the shotgun, which still poked out of the bag a little. He then tied the extra rifle to the top of it, with a slip knot to make it easy to pull out. We also loaded up as much ammo as we could practically carry (that stuff was heavy!) and then put some of the knives in their cases and brought those too. Finally, mostly ready to brave the town outside, we drank some of the water, and ate enough food to satisfy, but not to fill. A full stomach can’t run.

At long last, we shouldered our bags, grabbed up the rifles, and left the little room. At the front door, we paused to peer out, then snuck out between the piles of rubble and the walls. In the chilly grey of lightening morning, the evidence of yesterday’s battle stood out clearly against the shambles of the city. Bodies lay in many forms of dismemberment, while blood that had pooled and run across the dusty ground lay in thick, somewhat hardened patches. Trails of it; smears of it; splatters of it coated the entire area in browns and reds that caused the stomach to turn and threaten to revolt against the food we had just finished eating.

I closed my eyes for a moment as my head spun. A hand on my shoulder made me turn. My father cast me a sympathetic and concerned look, to which I nodded. Yes, I’d be alright. He gestured with his head for me to follow him as he went after the Keep, who was making his way carefully and silently along the small empty space the falling rubble had created against the edge of the brick building. I nodded and motioned for him to go as I took up a place behind him. I kept my eyes and mind firmly on what I was doing. After a few minutes, we reached the next edge of the building, and peered out at the street beyond. The carnage was not so great here as it had been in the other street, but the story was still the same. Many bodies. We waited here for several minutes, listening as the wind stole almost silently through the streets, tousling the hair and clothing on some of the victims.

At long last, the Keep slipped out from behind a tall piece of walling against the side of the building, and into the street. Nothing moved. There were no sounds. He turned in all directions, rifle raised and at the ready. Still, there was nothing. Finally, my father followed him, leaving me in the rubble with my gun up and ready to shoot. I had gotten a little more familiar with guns in these years, and more accepting of their usage. But I still hoped I wouldn’t have to shoot anyone. I shuddered at the thought.

And then I drew a deep breath in, and stepped out into the street as the sun peeked over the horizon to the east. Gun held outstretched in one hand, braced against the other shoulder, I followed my father and the Keep as they walked down the street. My father faced one side of the street, while the Keep faced the other, and I took the rear mostly facing backward. I kept my bearings by listening to their soft footfalls as we made our way toward to north end of town.

There was little movement as we slowly passed block after block of the city with its coating of death strewn for more than a mile. In the distance we could hear people running for short stretches, probably from shelter to shelter.

As the edge of the city came into view, about a dozen men stepped out from the doors of buildings to either side of the road we were on, a few blocks away still. They were heavily armed, wielding just about anything that could be considered a weapon. Their business was obvious, as they stopped stretched out across the road, an effective barrier between us, and the open freedom of the barrens. Not many would have considered the outlands to be safety, as the lack of food and water made it almost as dangerous as raiders, but to us it was simply the border between death, and our safe haven.

We stopped in our tracks, unsure what to do. I continued to scan our rears, in case they decided to wall us in. My father turned just barely and whispered softly. “We need to split up. If we try to shoot them all, we’ll just end up attracting more of them. And they would rush us while we shot. So as soon as I shoot one round at the leader, Cam you go west, Keep, east. Get a ways out, then round yourselves to the road, a ways out there. Go northward, along the trail. We’ll meet at the branch in the road.” I didn’t like the idea. Splitting up, wouldn’t we be easier targets? But I had no time to argue. My father turned full and pulled the trigger, releasing a single bullet to do what damage it could to the leader. I didn’t wait to find out how that went; I turned and nearly leapt toward the alley on my left, the sounds of the other man and my father retreating the other way. As I raced through the streets, I took glances to either side. Three of the men had darted into the roads next to them, keeping pace with me a few blocks over. I continued to race through the streets, then suddenly I took a turn down an alley to the left again. I could hear the men stop when I failed to appear at the next true road crossing.

Not waiting for them to catch up, I turned onto the road the alley met up with, heading back to the west. I couldn’t hear the men anymore, but when I came to the next crossing there was no sign of them. I turned toward the north, and once again sped away from my pursuers. Just as I was about the cross the edge of the city into the deep dusty dirt which shone a speckled grey and brown, the three men stepped out of another alley and raced after me. Their legs were used to running more than mine, so I knew they would catch up to me in a matter of minutes. So I turned around, held my ground, and fired my rifle at the first man. As I was cocking the gun to reload the chamber, the man who had been second swerved to avoid tripping over the fallen, and the third was not so lucky. He fell full on his stomach, his nose smashing into the ground. I fired a second shot as the remaining man roared toward me, but my aim was marred with fear and adrenaline and the bullet barely scraped his shoulder before colliding with a spray of concrete into the side of a building.

The man kept coming, anger pure on his dirty haggard face. For a brief moment, I wondered what this man had been like before all this. Had he perhaps been a shipment handler for a trade corporation? Or maybe even something as docile as an accountant for Asia Bank?

But thinking of him as something more friendly and less murderous didn’t even slow me from firing a newly loaded round from the barrel of my rifle directly into the man’s chest, and watching him grasp at it as he fell to the ground. The third man had managed to work his way to his feet and finished spitting grit and blood, and he took a glance at the man lying on the ground.

Gazing idly at the weapon in his hands, he looked hard at the weapon I held, before turning to stagger away. Breathing hard, I kept my eyes on him until he was gone, then turned and made for the dusty dirt.

I had gone no more than maybe fifty yards across the distinct barrens, when I could hear more shots reverberating through the streets. Many shots, sounding like a mini battle. I heard the shotgun issue twice, a brief pause then two more. And finally silence. A few seconds later, there was a single shot, and a second after that one more. I waited, breath held, but heard no more noises. I realized I was near to hyperventilating, so I made myself draw in a few deep breaths and slow my racing heart. Father had said to meet him at the branch in the road. So I would.

Turning, I once again began treading across the wide open barrens. There were some clusters of rock ahead, which I could use for rear cover, so I hurried toward them. Once I reached the rocks, there was a winding, much used path that coursed between boulders the height of buses, until it reached the road again on the other side. The patch of rocks was maybe a mile wide, and two or so long. They made a pretty nice spot to camp.

I thought at one point while I was following the path that I heard scraping and voices, but when I paused to listen only the lonely wind uttered any noise. I saw what might have been a rat dart from the shade of one boulder and scurry across the path to the safety of a deep hole under the edge of another.

As I reached the edge of the last boulder between me and the vast open of the outlands, I stopped and leaned against it, surveying what lay ahead. In patches, the wind blew the dirt around, sweeping it this way and that. The few skeletal trees that stood tall out there were cinder black, bleached white, or the grey of long rotting. Sparse groups of brush stood out in clumps that resembled infected sores. The only thing that looked even remotely inviting was the sky, though that too bore the effects of long neglect. It no longer attained a true blue, even on the sunniest of days. Instead, there was always a greyish cast to it, as if even there the dust had settled.

I checked my gun before I set out, reloading it with rounds from my bag. I also made sure the pistol was easily reached, then drew in a deep breath, and set out. If one didn’t know where they were, it would be easy to get lost along this stretch of the journey and wander for weeks if starvation, heat, or dehydration didn’t kill you first. I had been this way many times though, and used the trees and bushes, the few small rocks, to mark my passage. There was a road there, long and winding, even still mostly whole. But the dusty dirt had long since covered it as the rest of the world seemed to have been. And so there was no true marking to tell which direction would take a person to another city, and perhaps safety.

Following the landmarks I’d long since burned into memory, I stopped up when I came to the branch. Before the dust settled, the road had come to a crossing here. The main road had continued northward, heading for the outcropping of Wisconsin, and the other road had struck East and West respectively toward other towns. We knew where it was, and so we used it to cover our trail back and forth between our fallout shelter and the town. It was kind of out of the way, because once we were out there a ways, we turned to go back south. But it served the purpose, and was therefore an acceptable loss of time and energy.

I looked in all directions, before huddling down in a gathering of dead bushes. I broke several branches on my way down, and as I made myself comfortable for the wait, but I didn’t feel too bad about it. They’d been dead for ages. It surprised me that they even still held any form, but I knew nothing of plants.

I watched as a lonely bird circled the sky, dropping down a little closer to me for another look. It was a scavenger. A bird that thrived from the death of other creatures. Seeing, or perhaps smelling, that I was neither dead, nor close to it, the bird swooped up and headed south. I kept an eye on it as it kept its bearings. A long distance off, it began to circle again, and yet once more continued onward. My father maybe?

Hopeful, I continued to wait. The afternoon sun shone down full strength, and only the scraggly twigs and branches of the bushes could offer any protection. I was soon drenched from sweat. Pulling out a water pouch, I took a long drink of the mostly warm water, before returning it. I was mildly surprised to hear the buzzing of insects in the near distance.

Finally, on the horizon, I could see a dark shape forming. I couldn’t tell if there was only one, or two persons. The progress of the dark spot was slow, and somewhat wandering. Almost as if they were either lost, or injured.

My heart in my throat at the thought, I almost stood to run to meet them, but caution bid me to wait. If it wasn’t my father or the Keep, I’d be in trouble. So I forced myself to keep my position a while longer just to be sure. I couldn’t help much if they were injured anyway, and wasting my own strength would not be wise.

As the dot grew closer, it separated at one point and I could distinctly see that it was two people. Most likely my father and the Keep. I let out a breath. They could still be injured though.

About half an hour later, I could finally make them out fully. I could see the crude features of the gigantic man, and the smaller somewhat softer lines of my father. I almost rose to my feet, but then I stopped short.

I’d been wrong. There were not two men, but three. A third man followed along behind my father, one of the rifles pointed squarely at his shoulders. I nearly yelled out, but clamped a hand over my mouth at the last second. If they walked too close to this clump of bushes, surely they’d see me hiding here. It was just a ways off the actual road, so hopefully if my father led the man this way, they’d stay on the road. They were weaving somewhat, and I could see a large strip of blood across my father’s side. The Keep had blood down one of his legs, and along his shoulder.

Carefully, before they were close enough to me to hear anything, I brought the gun up to my shoulder and positioned myself to shoot. Again I had to wait for what seemed like ages. With their injuries, the going was slower than it would have been.

At long last though, when my shoulders were aching with the strain of waiting and holding the gun, and my fingers were cramped almost beyond use, they drew up to the road crossing. My father stopped in the middle of the crossing; the Keep noticing and stopping too. He stumbled as he stopped, and almost fell. The man with the gun used the butt of it to shove my father’s shoulders. “Keep moving. I know you’re stalling, but that boy of yours is probably long gone. Even if he lived to make it, he wouldn’t come back looking for you. Not a soul would cross these parts twice in a day.”

My father cast a look around, as if he really did hope I would be coming along again, but then his eyes gloomed over and he turned to go down the other direction. The man shook his head, pointing over his shoulder at the road I was on. “No. I know it’s that way. Ain’t nothing that way but a couple of old folks holed up in a shoddy little town. Nah. The place I’ve heard of has gotta be that way, ‘cause no one goes that way. It ain’t been found yet, so that’d make more sense.”

My father shook his head, trying his best to look casually dubious. “Uh-uh. If we go that way, we’ll die out here in the outlands, leaving something for that scavenger to come back for. No food or water out there. Just a dried up barren where once there was water. Lots of water.” The man with the gun gave my father a look of irritation. “Never mind that, all that water talk is making me thirsty. I know that shelter is out there, just brimming with food and water, waiting for the wits and intelligence of someone like myself to find it. And you’ll come with me, just long enough to find it. Then, I’ll leave you for the birds, to draw in some fresh meat.” He gave a gravelly laugh, obviously sure he was clever.

I held myself ready to spring to action at any moment. I would have shot him already, but the Keep was right on the other side of him, and I knew the bullet wouldn’t likely stop with the stranger. He was too close, only a mere hundred feet away. My father hedged, obviously thinking about myself and my sister, but then he turned and made his way along this road I was just barely off of.

The Keep groaned and turned too, almost dragging his weight along the dusty dirty ground. He sank deeper than the other two into the dirt, bringing him almost level with them for height. The man with the gun followed, hidden for the while behind their bodies.

Slowly, they made their way past us. I remained unseen as they trudged past me. At long last, they drew level with me, the opportune moment for me to shoot. If they went past me completely, I couldn’t shoot for fear that the bullet would continue through him and kill one or both of the other two. I didn’t know if I was fast enough though. If his reflexes were good, he’d turn and shoot me as I cleared my gun of the sticks before me.

And then luck had my back. The very large man who called himself Keep could barely keep his weight in check on a sturdy floor, on the best of his days. And with a wound on one leg, and the ground sifting and sliding beneath him, the ground finally won. His foot slipped out from under him, and his massive body began a descent that would imminently lead to the ground. As the man with the gun watched the lumbering giant of a man fall, I rose up out of the bushes, brought the gun to ready, and fired the saving shot. The stranger tried to bring his gun around to return fire, but it was too late. He was already falling even as he squeezed off a shot, which went sailing high into the air where there was nothing in danger of being hit. I knew it would arch off across the land before coming down probably two or three hundred yards off.

Mt father swiveled, his look of dread and horror quickly replaced with ecstatic relief and elation when he saw what had happened. He stood frozen for a moment in disbelief, then rushed over to swoop me in his arms. They didn’t seem as big as they had five years ago, my own growth bringing them about to a normal size in my eyes. But they still felt just as loving and comforting as they had then.

His eyes were watery as he drew back. “I didn’t know what we would do. I was trapped. If it had been just me, I would have let him shoot me rather than lead him out here. But he would have shot the Keep, and I couldn’t have that on my head.” We turned to the Keep, who was in the process of checking himself over to be sure he wasn’t the one who had been shot. At our voices, he turned to look up at us. “Oh, thank you lucky star. I thought for sure I’d bit it for falling.” I shook my head. “Falling saved your life. It gave me my shot.” The man looked at me for a moment, then shook his head. “Who knew my own clumsiness would be my saving grace?” He worked at getting himself upright again, my father and I helping him.

I cast a look down at the stranger, whose blood already watered the soil. Shaking my head, I grabbed up the gun and turned to the two men I’d saved. “How did this happen anyway? How did he get it?” The Keep shook his head and looked graver and embarrassed. “It was all my fault. I thought the gun had jammed, so I threw it aside and grabbed a different one. As soon as we thought we were done with the people who were pursuing us, even giving a few final shots to kill wounded, he suddenly stepped out of an alley, holding the gun. I laughed at him, ‘cause I thought it wouldn’t work, and he shot me in the shoulder. He’d gotten it unjammed, and he wanted us to lead him to some sort of shelter he kept babbling about.

“Something he said was a fallout shelter or something from world war three. He said he was in the forces when the world ended, and all the runners had it the shelter was out in what used to be Lake Michigan. I know he was full of it though. If there was some kind of shelter full of food and water, it would have long since been found, and it’d be gutted by now. There’d be nothing left. Cause if it was found, the odds of it being found by intelligent people would be very slim.” He dusted himself off.

I gave my father something of a guilty glance. We had found it. We’d been sitting on a gold mine for years, hording it from the people. The people who could have really used all that food and water; people who had starved or dehydrated to death. We could have saved them. A vast number of them anyway. Maybe not all of them, but certainly many. Guilt and sadness choked me up.

My father shook his head though. “Yeah, you’re probably right. It would have been found, and it’d likely be empty. If anyone had found it, we would have heard about it in all the other stories of vast riches of food and water being found, and haphazardly devoured by greedy, unintelligent people.”

The Keep heaved a deep sigh. “I dunno what to do now. That place is probably still crawling with raiders, and then there’s the clientele all splayed out as a feast for the birds… Nothing to do there. And yet, to let so much stuff sit in my store and possibly fall into their hands… Its unthinkable.” My father shrugged. “Maybe just go and rest for a bit, let things settle there. Your stuff won’t go to rot any faster with no one there to look after it. You can go back and have a grand reopening once the raiders get bored and move on.” The large man nodded.

He turned to look west. “I guess I’ll go huddle up with the old folk, in that city out there. Not even the raiders bother going that way. Nothing there.” My father nodded. The Keep looked at us. “And what’ll you do?” Father shrugged. “I’ve gotta go get my girl. She’ll be wondering what’s happened of us, that we’ve been away overnight.” He was right about that, Tara was probably pretty worried by now. But the gesture to the north was an unspoken lie.

The Keep nodded, clasping my father’s hand in his in genuine friendship. “Good luck then. Keep the guns. You’ll need them out here more than I even could where I’m going. Not too hard to fight off the feisty old timers. Not too many of them either. Probably ten or twelve, all in their fifties and sixties the lot of them.” My father nodded.

“Thanks. If I get a chance, I’ll pay you back.” But the giant man shook his head. “Consider them payment to your boy there, for saving my sorry life.” He nodded his head to me once, then turned and started out slowly into the west. The sun had crossed the center of the sky, and was on its way down.

Turning to me, my father spoke quietly to be sure he wasn’t heard. “We better go north a bit, till we get around that pile of rocks a ways out. Don’t want to be seen going east yet.” Without a word, I followed him as he returned to the crossing and turned us northwards. I didn’t understand why we couldn’t just take the man with us.

After about half an hour, we got to the pile of rocks my father had mentioned, and stopped to rest. We could wait here till we were sure the man wouldn’t see us coming back, and he would think we had gone further north out of sight beyond the rocks.

Finally I asked my father, “Why couldn’t we have taken him with us? Why are we still hiding it from people? They’ve mostly weeded themselves out now. Surely we could bring people here who are honest and decent people?” My father shook his head. “It’s still too hard to tell who is and isn’t honest. Too many people would still kill for food, and would completely destroy the place in their attempt to take all of it. And then, once they had loaded it all up to take with them, they’d burn it. Once it was back to their ‘home’, they would in turn be raided, and it would be scattered. Slowly, it would be scattered and devoured, some of it most likely wasted in the process of being taken. No, so far it’s still too great a burden for society. Too many still have the ‘me first’ kind of attitude.”

I stared at him a moment, then looked away. Surely he couldn’t believe it. And even so, he couldn’t be right. After this long without reliable sources of food and water, people would be so grateful to have our stockpiles that they would easily fall in line and allow for others to be fed as well. They would sleep in their own rooms, and they would socialize in the great library, and use the gyms and recreational rooms we’d discovered…

Finally my father and I began our journey toward the fallout shelter. The way was long, and it would take us well into the night to make it back, but we wouldn’t stop. Father was worried for Tara, and so was I.

With the setting sun, it grew chilly out and the winds sought to freeze our bones. We both pulled out light jackets from our sacks and donned them, not yet confident in our distance to light torches even for light let alone heat. The moon looked to be nearly full, so we would have enough light we likely wouldn’t have to use any fire at all.

As we drew to the point where we could see the shelter, we were surprised to see an encampment. Between us and the boats, about thirty people could be seen huddled up to small fires for warmth. About five fires were lit, and small makeshift shelters had been erected against the chill of night. There was no way in the brightness of the moon to make our way across the open area without being seen. I looked to my father, not sure what we would do. The people didn’t seem to have any inclination to venture closer to the boats, so they weren’t likely to find the shelter, but we wanted to get back in before morning.

Looking around, my father sighed in irritation. “I guess we’ll have to go around,” he said softly. I raised my eyebrows, dubious. “That might take most of the length of night by itself. Why don’t we just wait here until they leave tomorrow, and go home in their absence?” In hindsight, my use of the word home surprised me. I hadn’t realized just how attached to the place I’d gotten, to consider it my home.

He looked at me a moment, then shook his head. “We can’t guarantee they’ll go home tonight. We’ll have to use the entrance to the north.”

Shrugging my bag higher onto my shoulder I nodded and let him lead us through the odd piles of rock and dead clamshells, skirting the open area that had once been a bay for the island overhead. In some places, we had to loop around quite a ways out of the way, so we were never in the open gaps between various pillars and piles. And so the night passed, with us hiding and sneaking while the unwary persons sat around their fires and talked or ate. After quite a while, most of them retreated within the shelters, while a few remained to keep watch.

The sky was beginning to lighten as we finally reached a place where the edge of the island blocked us from their view, and we stole for the sloped base of the island. The entrance on this side was better hidden than the one we had first used to gain entrance to the fallout shelter so wonderfully hidden from the rest of the world. A large rock stood about twenty feet above the floor of the lake bed, seeming to be fully embedded in the rest of the surface. When we reached it, my father leaned over and grabbed a smaller chunk of the rock which seemed to merely be another wedge, and gave it a firm yank. There was a thick clunk from within the rock, and it swung outward to reveal the dark entrance to a set of stairs that went down into the seabed. Without hesitation, we stepped down into the stairwell, pulling the ‘hatch’ back closed. Once the hatch had clasped into place, the lights came on. We had reprogrammed it not to light up until after the door was shut, to keep from spewing a great beam of unnatural light into the great darkness for any and all to see.

As we made our way down the hallways, the lights along the way lit up in our stead, and darkened in our wake. They were motion sensing lights, which turned on at our presence, and off for lack of it. This had helped to conserve power. We had done many things to this place, to help conserve power and keep things rolling. We only used things that were a priority.

The sound of running feet could be heard for several minutes before Tara rounded a corner and raced into father’s arms. She let out a little squeal as she wrapped her arms around his neck. “I was so scared!” She was somewhat out of breath. “I was starting to think something terrible had happened and-” she stopped short as she pulled back and saw the blood on his shirt. “Daddy, you’re hurt! What happened? Are you going to be okay?” Our father held up a hand to stem the flow of questions. “It’s not deep. I’ll be okay. There was a gang war in the city, things got bad for a bit. But we’re back, and we’re okay. Tired, dirty, hungry, but okay. And still hidden.”

Tara gave me a once over, then nodded. She led the way with a steady stream of chatter about how the group had come in yesterday, settling into the clearing on the lake floor. They had stayed pretty much to themselves, not too eager to explore the wreckage of boats. They didn’t look like they were planning to stay for long, but they also didn’t seem to be in any hurry to continue.

Now

The wind made a chill to trickle down my spine, causing me to pause with pen poised over the paper before me. Glancing around, I noticed that I was actually freezing. I had been so involved in my writing that I hadn’t noticed myself grow colder and colder.

Shuddering, I reached across my little sleeping spot and pulled my blanket over. It took a little fumbling, but I managed to get it wrapped around my shoulders. It was kind of a thin blanket, but even that helped. It cut down the wind chill, and helped to keep my minimal heat in long enough for me to warm up. Shrinking back onto my ‘bed’, I pushed the curtain closed that I had draped over my spot. We were camped in the middle of nowhere, in a great grove of dead trees. The trees kept the wind from fully reaching us, only small threads of chill reaching far enough to run cold fingers along my spine and across my cold nose. My fingers ached somewhat from the cold.

I knew Alec would be back any minute to start a fire, so I didn’t worry about freezing any. It was almost winter time and this far north, it got cold quickly. There were still about six weeks or so before there would be snow fall, but it was already so cold it made sleeping a little hard. I was both sorry and excited for Alec to be here for a winter. He had never seen snow before. Snow didn’t ever fall in the middle of the states anymore. It hadn’t since just after the war, because the fallout from bombs, and heat from the fires had thinned out the ozone layer considerably, and now the place was not as protected from the direct heat of the sun. It did cool a little each year; I had noticed that this year in particular it hadn’t gotten nearly so hot. My thermometer hadn’t reached over a hundred and thirty all summer. Still too hot to be outside at all in the middle of the day, but much cooler than when I had first been around there as a boy. I could still remember the weather experts at the time just before the fall had proclaimed it would be the hottest ever recorded, with temperatures reaching one-fifty. So at that rate, in another seventy years things would be back to normal. I stuck my tongue out at the thought.

“What? You look like you just ate one of those fish flavored rations.” I looked up, surprised. I hadn’t heard Alec come back through the trees. “Oh nothing. My mind was wandering again. When I was a boy, temperatures in Chicago and south of that got as high as one-fifty.” He gave me a dubious look. “I don’t know whether to say how nice, or oh gees.” I chuckled softly. “Yes, in current conditions, that doesn’t sound too bad does it?”

He set down a stack of brush and branches he’d gathered and started building a fire.  Food for fire hadn’t been a problem since we’d gotten into Wisconsin. With so much dead brush, it was easy to keep fires going. We did try to be conservative though, building them small and only keeping them in the hours the sun was gone. I knew we wouldn’t be able to do that for much longer, but I planned to be well into Canada by then.

As the twigs and brush began to crackle and sizzle with heat and light, I got out of my shelter and crouched down by it with my hands held over it for warmth. I let my eyes wander over my hands, no longer tight and sturdy from my youth or prime. The skin seemed a little too loose, and the cold had turned them somewhat whiter than usual. I frowned.

They shook with the cold, and as I rubbed them together, they felt dry and leathery. I hated the feeling, so I turned the palms back to the comforting warmth of our little fire. It took a while for it to really warm up, and by then my companion had placed ration packets by it to warm up. We didn’t bother to place the contents in pans, simply heated them by the flame and ate them straight from the packages.

After we’d eaten, we pulled our sleeping mats closer to the fire, then lay out to sleep. I just couldn’t though. I found myself staring up into the black sky, eyes tracing out the stars high above. The sky seemed even colder than the ground, causing the stars to twinkle a little. I smiled as the song came back. One of the targets of the collapse of society. Very few alive probably knew about the song, let alone the lyrics. I softly sang it to myself as it comforted me to sleep. “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are?...”

Then

The group of people stayed where they’d been camped for almost two weeks. During that time, I’d seen a few children amongst them, and one infant. One person had died, and been buried, two days before they left. I had a feeling this had been the reason they stayed where they were so long. They had known that person was dying.

I felt horrible sitting in my lush palace of sorts, watching the drama unfold below. A woman sobbed, others comforted her, and they had a miniature funeral. We couldn’t hear what they were saying, before they wrapped him in a piece of sail from one of the boats and buried him in a hole that others had dug. And then two days later, they moved on.

I gave an internal sigh of relief when they were gone. It wasn’t so hard to hide away when no one else was around. It didn’t feel so much like hoarding.

A week after the group left, I was outside scavenging amongst the boats. I enjoyed digging amongst the remnants of ships and ferries. I was alone, as Tara had no interest in the ship graveyard, and Father was feeling somewhat sick.

The ferry was very large, meant to carry not only people, but cars as well. I loved to stand on the forward deck and gaze out across the sand, pretending that instead there was a vast sea of rolling waves, causing my boat to rise and fall gently. I had never been on a boat in the real water, and so this was quite a stretch of imagination. I didn’t know what I was missing though, so I told myself this was exactly how it was supposed to feel. I had read many books from way back when that included great voyages, or even just day trips and they all largely agreed that the waves rolled, heaved, and dipped.

I was doing exactly that, when I saw movement on the horizon. Instantly I was firmly grounded and brought back to the dried out lake bed where I’d lived for years. At first I thought maybe it was just a group of two or three persons who would pass by with no knowledge of my presence, but as I ducked back into the shadow of the boat wall, I could see that there were a fair many people headed this way. A larger group than what had passed before.

I tried to think what to do. They were close enough that if I tried to duck for the safety of the rock wall, thirty feet away, they might see me and follow, finding the front entrance to such riches, it made John Silver’s treasure seem meager. And if I stayed here, maybe they’d stay overnight, and I’d be caught here on this boat till they left. As we’d seen from the other group, it wasn’t guaranteed that they’d leave right away the next day.

By the time I could have made up my mind though, it was too late to do anything but hide. There was a small storage closet against the wall I was leaning on, so I crept backward until I reached the door. Carefully and quietly, I pulled the door open. Just that simple action though caused the door to fall off. Jolted, I grabbed hold of it before it could hit the floor with a loud thump. Letting out a sigh of relief, I gently lowered it to the floor and leaned it into the closet. This wouldn’t do then. Nowhere to hide on this deck. Turning, I walked along the deck till I reached the stairs down to the lowest deck of the ferry. Along the back of the ship, nearest to the rock wall, there were huge chests and storage bins. But I knew they’d be searched thoroughly if the people decided to board the ship. So I passed them by without a second thought. At the very end, there were great holes in the side of the ship where ropes and rigging stretched between the ship and the anchor which no longer was needed to keep the ship bound in place.

Glancing over my shoulder, I decided there was nothing else I could do. I slipped over the railing, and grabbed ahold of the rope. Wrapping my legs around it, I let myself slide around till I was dangling from the rope. The bottom of it wasn’t secure, so the rope ended up sliding closer to the ship, which put my back right up against it. This both aided and hindered my attempt to reach the ground. It hurt against my back, but it also gave me a measure of stability.

My hands began to ach, and small cuts and scratches formed on my palms and fingers as the worn course braiding of the rope bit into my flesh. At long last, with my blood pumping so loudly I thought for sure that alone would give away my presence, I reached the ground. My shoulders were aching as I lowered my feet to the ground and let go of the rope. I stood for a moment, looking at my shaking, slightly bleeding hands. As my vision cleared, I leaned up against the side of the boat and shuffled around until I could see the group of people coming. They were pretty close, and I could see them better now. They were raiders.

I felt my chest tighten and I ducked back around behind the boat. Fear nearly blinded me. (Raiders! Here!) I didn’t know what to do. If I went out to my left, toward the main entrance, they’d see me. If I tried to follow the boat to the right, to where the edge of the island began its curve, I’d be in plain view for ten feet.

But if they came over to investigate the boat, I’d be found, and probably killed. I had nothing on me, so there wasn’t anything of interest about me. But they would kill me just the same. Looking up at the sky, I threw out a hasty help me to whatever might be there, and looked back around the edge of the boat. Maybe they’d just go on, not even bothering to stop. A bunch of broken and rotting ships held little promise of food, water, or anything helpful or essential to living. Maybe they would just keep going across the lake bed, toward the northern town beyond. After all, there was still much time left to the day.

They drew near and slowed, casting looks to the graveyard of ships. They were mostly on foot, though a few were being hauled on carts. Mostly women and children, some of them tied to rails on the carts. They had in their possession three cages on top of carts, and I could vaguely see some four legged animals in one of them. By the almost white of their fur, and the narrowness of their heads, I thought perhaps goats.

And then they stopped. I held my breath, begging them silently to keep going. But that would have been too much to ask. These boats held a little more interest to them than I had wagered. About a fourth of them started towards the boats, lighting torches up. They were going to burn the ships!

I backed up, silently mouthing out the word ‘no’ a few times. But no such luck. They advanced toward the ships rapidly, as if they’d been told to hurry. As they reached the first of the ships, about fifty yards away, they threw the torches onto the little dingy. The dead wood liked the flame, and quickly became engulfed with brightly burning fire. As they came, the men threw more torches onto boats, and within minutes a lot of the boats were sending red and orange flame skyward, black smoke greedily rising higher above it.

At last, they looked toward my safety. This, the largest of all the boats, was the prime target. Gathering around the edge of the boat, not twenty feet away from me, they lit up a half dozen rough chunks of wood, and threw them high onto the boat. One of them hit the side of the boat with a loud boom and fell to the dirt. With nothing more interesting to burn than the chunk of wood, the fire on that one quickly dwindled out. But I could hear the flame on the decks of the ship crackle, hiss, and pop as it quickly built into a raging fire. My shelter would burn for hours perhaps, but I couldn’t stay close to it. I would be hurt.

If they stayed long enough for the ship to burn to conclusion, I’d be in plain sight. I turned to sneak along the edge of the ship, to a point where I could at least get up against the rocks. I thought maybe with all the waving and flickering of the flame, that maybe I could make my getaway unnoticed.

As I followed the edge of the ship, I heard a particularly loud cracking and groaning above me and glanced upward, doing a double take at what I saw. A good portion of the side of the ship was on fire, and it had caved outward. I was directly under a falling slab of ship. Turning, I darted as fast as my legs could take me toward the rock wall steeply sloped up to the island. At the last second, when I thought I would make it to safety, I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head, hot and angry. I saw the ground rushing toward my face and closed my eyes against the sight. I never felt the ground hit me, as I sank into a deep dark void. Browns and blacks were my only companions.

Now

We had been walking for a few hours, before I realized we could hear people. Lots of people. I stopped in my tracks and Alec bumped into me. He caught his feet and looked around my shoulder, scanning the woods. “What is it?” His whisper was tense.

I lifted a hand and waved into the woods to our right. “We’ll have to start going that way now. Once we get around directly to their east, there is a high ridge that overlooks the entire valley, where Green Bay is." Alec nodded and we stepped off the worn path through the tall dead trees, striking off in a direction that was likely never used.

The trek around the great city would probably take a whole day to itself, as the city stretched for several miles. I let my mind wander again now that we had a new direction. Many years ago, as pictures in old books had shown, these great forests would have been filled with bright reds and brilliant yellows, soft oranges and deep purples. The midst of fall would have left the entire floor covered with fallen leaves, oak nuts and large pine cones.

The air would have been filled with the tangy smell of turned leaves, the thick smell of earth, and the sweet smell of rushing creeks. It would have been alive with the sounds of blue jays, woodpeckers, and squirrels, preparing for their winter in their own respective ways. The wind rustling the leaves mingled with the creaking of huge trunks and branches swaying gently. I could almost make myself be there, if I tried hard enough to blot out the truth that lay all around me. The tall trunks before me either black or white, or terrible grey, several of them having given up the fight and lay down for the final stage of their death. And yet, here in this land, close to the border of Canada, there was meager life.

In small clumps, patches and lonely singles, struggling and tiny stands of green stood out like stars in the sky. Under the edges of dead brush, little bits of green could be seen. They were diminished, as it was fall and the snow would soon bury them, but it was absolutely beautiful.

The air was crisp and cold, a gentle breeze toying with the loose straps on my bag. We had gathered some rations from a town before Milwaukee, but they were now very slim. On the other side of Green Bay however, there was a tiny settlement before the border of Canada. We could replenish a small amount of it there.

After a while, we left the maple forest reserve and entered vast tracts of what had once been farmland. A few bedraggled bushes and trees stood out like sentries across the empty plains. For the most part it was smooth and rolling, though a few large hills sought to gain some attention by shadowing the rest of the land. It was over one of these huge hills that I led Alec, which gave us the view I had beheld long ago, and now showed to him.

The horror that had once been Green Bay. The buildings that had once stood so tall and proud, skyscrapers and houses, a football stadium and vast parks, tall courthouses and churches; all of it lay in ruins. Most of it was unintelligible piles of rubble, though some of it still retained their squared or rounded shapes that defined the fact that once there had been a grand civilization in this large sprawling place. The large river that had divided the city into two parts for so many centuries had at long last been beaten back, until now there were only broken bridges and a large empty trough to show that it had ever been there.

A lot of the buildings toward the center of the city had been disassembled and either burned or reconstructed as simple living spaces. Fires burned in various places, revealing the people who lived there. They still kept slaves in this town, people who had been captured and brought here. They had developed into something of a society, though they were still very much the raiders. The men went on raiding parties about twice a year, leaving mostly women, children, and some of the men to protect them. A lot of women had been ‘integrated’ into the society as various men took them as ‘wives’. Basically, they claimed women as theirs, and would kill to keep them. Sometimes they traded them around much as they did their meager livestock, food, or things acquired by scavenging.

And then there were the slaves. Men, women, and children who were claimed as property for the sole purpose of labor. Building the living spaces, gathering firewood, clearing space, and hauling stuff. They were never taken on raiding parties, but half the men were kept locked up during the raiding parties, to prevent them from revolting and overthrowing those in charge of them.

As I told all this to Alec, he stood just staring at the vast city. I had been silent for quite a while before he spoke. “Were there really so many people as to fill all of this?” I gave a small, mirthless smile. “Yes. At one point in our nation’s history, there really were so many people. Before the plague, and even more so before the war. A Million people lived in this city. More than that, though I couldn’t be sure how many there were. It’s been ages since then.”

We stayed in that spot for quite a while, just staring out at the heaps and jumbles that slowly settled into the earth. In another century, there would be little trace that once there had been such a city. By that time, there would only be the knowledge that once we had been anything other than a broken, diminished people with little education, and less intelligence.

Finally I told him that we needed to move on. The day was more than half over, and we needed to make a little headway. Best be far away as soon as possible. The longer we were within sight of Green Bay, the more likely our discovery. They tended to stay pretty close, especially with winter coming, but they still foraged around during the day.

So, with a final look over my shoulder, we turned and walked down the northeastern edge of the hill. It rolled and dipped more along this patch, I believe at one point it had been a golf course, before being ‘preserved’ as a nature habitat or something. Way before the war.

Then

The world was pitching and tossing, my head thumping against something hard and almost wooden feeling. For a moment, my foggy mind believed that I was somehow on a real ship, on a sea far from home. That any moment now the misty spray of the water was going to splash into my face, leaving the taste of real salt on my dried lips.

But it didn’t come, and that wasn’t waves I heard. I could hear the steady grinding sliding of sand being crunched underneath wheels of sorts. I could hear wood creaking and groaning, sometimes giving reluctantly to the pull of the wheels under it.

And above that, I could hear soft crying, from somewhere above me. Or correction; in front of me, but above my head… I couldn’t make sense of that observation, until I realized that I was lying down. I opened my eyes and tried to see through the haze that clouded my head. The world was all fuzzy, with little distinction of things.

A face wavered into my line of sight, stayed there for a moment, and was gone before I could focus longer than it took to realize it was a woman. I blinked a few times, straining my eyes to try to make them do as I wanted.

Finally, I could see well enough to take in my surroundings. I was in a cage, on wheels. (A Raider’s cage!) I had been captured by the men who burned the ships. How had they found me though? I vaguely remembered being struck while running, by the burning side of a ship that had lost the struggle to remain upright. They must have seen me running and picked me up. Had they proceeded to find my family as well?

I sat up slowly, my head throbbing and filling my vision for a moment with a fuzzy brown. When things had cleared up once more, I looked around sharply. There were three women in this cage with me, and two small children. A teenaged boy hid in the far corner, a relative idea as the box itself was only possibly 14 feet long. I could feel by the movement of the box that three sets of wheels helped the box roll along.

The sides seemed to be made of sturdy bars suited for keeping things in, maybe from zoo cages or something, while there was no actual roof. A sail from a boat had been draped over the top, with all the sides rolled up and tied to allow for seeing in. And of course, it let those within see out. I could see in the distance through the many people, that there was another box. I could not however, hard as I tried, see into it. I remembered there had been one other cage and turned the other way to see the one that held the goats in it. They were dirty and looked pretty thin.

Peering out between the bars of my cage, I saw that long ropes had been attached to the base of the cart, and four men to the front were pulling it, while two men pushed from behind. Every so often they changed place with other people amongst the raiders. I noticed that one particular man seemed to be in charge of all the others.

I could also tell by the position of the sun that it was not the same day I had been taken. I supposed that was why I had to relieve myself so badly.

As the sun began to flirt with the curve of the world in the distance, the man in charge called for a halt. In various stages, the people set about preparing for a night. The persons in the cages were let out to relieve themselves, like animals on a long car ride.

I tried then to see the people in the other cage, and one of the men watching us struck me upside the head and grouched at me to hurry along my business. It was all I could do to keep from uttering a huge sigh of relief as I watered the dry ground. Everything inside loosened up now that there was a little more room and my stomach quit aching.

I again tried to see who the prisoners were across the group of people, but it was impossible. I was shoved rather harshly back into the cage, and the door was shut behind me as I was the last one done. None of them said a word to me, but huddled down to sleep. I was somewhat baffled by the fact that none of the women made any notion that they were related to the children. How would those children have been by themselves? But I realized that probably there was a terrible reason, and I turned my mind away from it. All of us kept to ourselves, taking up as little space as we could as we curled up.

I couldn’t sleep though. My mind turned to the possibility of escape. How could I get out of here, and get away from these people? Why wasn’t I dead? Why would they keep a man my age? I mentally shook the thought, returning to the idea of jail break.

Having lain as close to the bars as I could without actually scrunching into them, I lay feeling the bars up and down with idle fingers. For their age, they were remarkably well kept. They weren’t rusted, or dented, or at all weakened. The black paint that hung on them was the only thing showing the years, as much of it had flaked and been lost. Studying closely in the growing gloom, I saw that the welded joints of the cage were also in good repair, not a one looking even slightly loose.

Finally, my gaze turned upward. It would maybe be just possible to scale the bars, and slip out from under the canvas draped over the tops of the cage. It wasn’t held tightly, simply tied to keep it from flying off or sliding down. I lifted my head just barely and glanced around me. The people with me were either sleeping or feigning such, besides the two children who were huddled together on the opposite edge of the cart. Those outside the cart had erected temporary shelters and were either within, or around small fires scattered throughout the camp.

If I did make it out, I would have to go first to the other cart, and see if Tara or Father were there.

Of course, not being there didn’t mean everything; they may have been killed in a struggle if they’d been found. I forced the thought away. No, the only thing I could hope was that they were either safe in the other cage, or completely unnoticed within the island hideaway.

I had just about mentally mapped out and prepared my flight in my head, and was ready to spring to silent action, when a hand slid through the bars and clenched mine around one of the iron bars. A form suddenly hunched over me in the growing darkness, indiscernible in his own shadow.

“Don’t try it, buddy.” The voice was a whisper, barely loud enough for myself to hear, and not granting the others audience. “Listen, just sit tight. Hang in till we get to ‘Bay. I’ll help you get out then. But you gotta sit tight till then.” I stared at him, trying hard to get a look at his face. He turned a little, hiding his face deeper in black shadow, as the now sunless sky refused to help.

“I know what you’re thinking, but you can trust me. I can’t prove myself till we get there, but I can then. If you try to get out now, you’ll be struck dead. They don’t like runners. More than a few hotheaded fellas have been beaten to death on this journey of ours, each year. Don’t be one of them; you look too smart to be gone now. But hey, play dumb if you can. They don’t like smart ones either. Make them think you’re stupid, but somewhat obedient.”

With that, the hand was gone and when I turned fully, all I could see was the shadowy back of a stranger walking away. I lay in the dark staring long after he was gone, thinking about what he’d said. Should I believe him? Should I trust him? If he was so willing to let people go, why would the raiders have kept him around? And why would they still be going on these raids, if they knew somewhere along the way this guy would let them go? Or was he selective and only freed one or two? Wouldn’t those who were left tell out of jealous anger?

I didn’t know what to do. Should I try to make my escape? From what he had said, attempted escape was expected, maybe a sport for these people. Kind of a hunt really. I turned my head to look the other direction, and saw that there was a figure barely trying to conceal itself in the gap between two canvas shelters. The silver of the moon glinted on something that looked sharp and deadly, and I quickly lowered my head to the wood with a thick swallow.

I had almost rushed headlong into certain death. Even if the man never did get me out, at least he had saved my life for now. I could wait. I would wait, until we reached ‘Bay’, whatever that was. And then, when I had a chance between getting there and whatever they intended to do with me, I would make good my escape.

Now

We had managed to skirt most of Green Bay before the sun had fully set, and continued onward a ways into the cool night. Eventually, I grew so cold I simply had to stop. My limbs shook, and my hands cramped up terribly. I could hardly feel my toes, and my nose seemed almost frozen.

I told Alec in a weak voice that we should stop for the night. My fingers were almost useless, so it was all I could do to fumble my bag open and pull out my sleeping blanket. I didn’t want to even bother with the mat, but Alec took my bag and rolled it out for me. I could tell even in the dark that he was shivering too, but he was making himself be useful. We didn’t dare to light a fire, this close to the city. In the black of night, the bright flame would stand out like a neon orange sign in the middle of the barrens.

And so we pushed our sleeping mats as closely together as we could, and spread both blankets out atop one another, putting our bodies tightly against each other. He demanded I put my hands up against his back, and I reluctantly did so. He knew I needed those hands for writing.

Early in the morning, long before the sun would waken, we were up and moving. We had to keep moving, forcing the blood to pump. We made ourselves eat a little too much, pretty much all of what was left in our rations. We needed it for energy, to warm us up and help us reach the miniscule settlement along the Canadian border.

The people along the border were honest people, who had sought to enter Canada for protection against the raiders. They had been turned away though, because too many had tried to claim they were decent and then turned around and tried to loot some of the places within the lush country.

It wasn’t to say that Canada had been this blossoming, growing place, while all of America burned, was razed, or simply neglected till there was nothing left. Canada had been well maintained, and nursed back to health, under the careful direction of its owner.

We were still many miles away from the border, but now it seemed to be a possibility that we would actually reach it. We had been on our journey for quite some time now, and it had almost become something of a depressing trip. But with Green Bay behind us, and Nenallee ahead of us, I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I felt somewhat lighter.

It was still cold, and my whole frame ached. My eyes blurred as my breath wavered across them, sometimes watering up. Alec seemed to be having a little difficulty with it too. He had never been this far north, and he had never felt such cold before. It was only almost September, but winter’s chill seemed to have set in early.

It wouldn’t take long to reach the border town, perhaps a day or so. But this cold would make it seem an eternity.

Then

I clung to the bars of the cart with desperate fingers, my body heaving greatly with the effort to breath. It was so hot I was afraid I would die right where I sat, with my legs dangling between the bars of our cage. We had been moving all day, watching as two of the raiders dropped in the dusty dirty sand, likely to never rise again.

The others kept on walking, most of them actually fully covered, to keep the sun from direct contact I think. They looked like pictures I’d seen of natives to a desert land, with long flowing robes and capes, heads wrapped to reveal only eyes. Those oddly seemed better off than the ones who exposed themselves down to the bare minimums. It would appear that some of them had made this trip more times than others had.

My world was a blurred dreamlike version, because they refused to lower the sides of the cart to block the sun out. And so we fried. Glancing back at my cage companions, I wasn’t sure that the teenaged boy was even still breathing. A woman had been dumped out of the other cart around mid-day, like a rag doll being thrown away. I had stared hard to be sure it wasn’t Tara. But the hair had been black and much shorter, almost looking roughly shorn. Perhaps she had tried to guise as a man to hide.

Right now, all I could think of was the temperate halls of the hideaway. Warm or cool, as needed. And the water. As much water as we could drink, and if we spent enough time at it; pure as we wanted. Food. As much as we could fill our stomachs with, and more still. We had been fed this morning, one package each. My stomach grumbled irritably.

And so, hunger, dehydration, and heat kept my world from stabilizing. I had tried all morning, before the heat of the day had muddled my mind, to determine who amongst these ravaging barbarians had the guts to rescue me. But none seemed more likely than any other.

I barely noticed when the setting sun brought our convoy to a halt. It was markedly cooler though, almost enough to breathe easy. Not enough to return my brain power. The next thought brought a small, mirthless smile to my face. Brains were anti-solar-powered.

After the camp had been fully set, we were once again let out to relieve ourselves. The two children seemed to have been unable to contain themselves, and smelled terribly. I felt such deep sympathy for them that I’d likely have shed a tear or so if I’d had any fluid left in me to do so.

The teenager in our cart did not respond to any poking and prodding, and the men argued about whether to ditch him or not. Without conscious thought, I butted between them and him, and stuck my chest out forcibly. “Leave him for me. I’ll keep after him. If he dies you can take him and leave him. Let me tend him till then. If you’d let us have the sides down even at least halfway, that would likely save our lives. And make this not such a wasted trip for you.”

Obviously none of them were too eager to be lifting and dealing with a potential body right now, because they shrugged and backed off, leaving us there alone. Kneeling down beside the boy, I turned his head over to get a look at his face. He was still breathing, but he was completely listless. Pulling back an eyelid, I saw that he was out of it completely.

While I was rearranging him to lie more comfortably, a hand suddenly reached between the bars. I jerked reflexively, but then saw that the hand contained a tall cup, with water in it. Not by any means pure, but still more water than a single water packet contained. I looked at the small man who held it, but he didn’t meet my eyes. I took the glass with a mumble of appreciation. Tilting the smaller head with my hand, I poured some of the water into the boy’s mouth. I wasted none of the precious gift, making sure each mouthful was swallowed before doling more. When it was gone, the hand shot back into the cage, grabbed up the cup, and disappeared along with the man who owned it.

The teenager didn’t wake, but he did seem to breathe easier. I don’t know why I had jumped to this boy’s aid, but something had told me that he was my ticket out. Something about this boy was different. His skin was paler than most I’d seen for a while and his look and demeanor had been a little too innocent of the current condition of the world.

Then too, he reminded me of how I’d felt and probably looked all those ages ago when the world had ended. Scared, confused, and unlike myself; alone.

The next day, the sides of our cart were rolled down before we left, stopped and tied about two feet from the bottom of the cart. That left most of the shade on the left side of the cart in the morning, and on the other as afternoon wore on. Mid-day, we were left with almost total shade. It was nice. A light breeze complimented the relief. Another couple of the raiders ended up being left behind as they fell to the heat. One of them was pulling the cart I was in, so the others stopped and dragged him aside while a replacement was found, before we moved on.

I didn’t understand how they could be so frivolous and uncaring with the lives of their fellows, even in a raiding party. I mean, what was the point in going on this long expedition to capture people, knowing that some of their own would die? I asked one of the guards this during a break they took, and he shrugged. “We like to weed out the competition. Get rid of some of the weaker ones and you don’t tire yourself out trying to best them. Then you can save all your energy getting the upper hand on others.”

Later in the evening, I heard them talking about a town we were nearing. We were going to skirt it to the halfway point, and then the raiders were going to sweep in and have some fun. I shuddered. Another town to raid… I would have thought that long by now they would have depleted most of the towns along this route. Oh well.

When we finally came to the stopping point, I sat in the near dark, silent and listening. In the distance, I could hear nothing for what seemed ages, but then the screaming started. I guess there were still people left here after all.

Long after the sun had been gone, the raiders came back. They had a couple of new catches, one child and a woman. The child they tossed in with us, while the woman went into the other cart. The child screamed and screamed, until one of the women managed to get him to calm down a little.

The next morning, we once again headed off. The fields stretched further here, broken only occasionally by small stands of blacks, greys, and whites that I could only assume were trees from this distance. Off to the west, I could see a large smear of trees that continued for ages. It had obviously been a very large forest, which was still mostly intact, though it too was lifeless and colorless.

We spent the day in mostly silence, the air somewhat cooler now that we had crossed some kind of invisible line in the land. Still, sweat glistened off everything living, and waves of heat floated across the land around us, making the distance seem like water.

The day after that, the teen finally woke. He was somewhat delusional, asking if I was his mother, before he closed his eyes again. He was mostly over whatever heat stroke had done to him, but he still needed rest. And water. Different men had brought me water for the boy each time, so I didn’t know if maybe they just kind of liked the boy, or what. Maybe they just admired the fact that someone cared enough about a stranger to try.

Near evening that same day, he woke again and I managed to get some food into him. I was struck then by how much this resembled my hasty flight five years ago. An unconscious male for whom I had inadvertently been responsible, rolling along on a cart; not entirely sure where I was going but hoping for a decent outcome. I shuddered at how much things were repeating themselves. I still hadn’t managed to get a good look into the other cart, but I could hear at night and I had never heard their voices. I was sure that if my father were there, he would have long since called out to see if I was in this cart, and if so if I was okay. So likely, he wasn’t there. I just hoped that likewise Tara had escaped this fate.

That night, I hardly slept. I had heard the men talking around their fires, and they were excited that we were reaching what they loosely termed as ‘home.’ If home was ‘Bay’, then maybe as early as tomorrow, I might be free and on my way home… Not their roughshod, depleted and probably horrible version of home. My safe metal and concrete hallways, clean clothes, showers and hot meals, water and soft beds: my home.

The next day, there was a hushed anticipation about the group of people. They were excited. They were rushing headlong, at a rather brisk pace. It was like watching people finish a race. They were tired, hungry, thirsty, and almost done. And all they wanted to do was get there, and sit down and probably not move for weeks.

I shook my head. All these men had once been mostly decent people. They had been businessmen, accountants, factory workers, haulers, drivers, food handlers… Normal people. Some had been dads, and husbands. Brothers, cousins, uncles… And who knew what atrocities they had indulged in in the name of survival.

And then at long last I saw it. The city. A sprawling pile of rubble stretched for miles to the west, and the east. There was little standing and nothing whole. The streets were littered with so much stuff there wasn’t really room to walk around it or past it, only through it. Wrappers, papers, cans, bottles, cars, signs, carpet, electronics, and lots of Glass-COM glasses.

A huge sign out front read ‘Now Entering Green Bay.’ (Green Bay?) I scrunched my eyebrows in thought a moment. I had heard some stuff about Green Bay, while browsing the Keep’s shop. What was it? Ah yes. I felt my face grow cold and tingle with lack of blood. Green Bay was the area where three different gangs had converged and made their home. The main groups of raiders who swept the country in a great wave of murder and destruction five years ago. They held their base there, and brought all their food and captives here.

And now, we were being brought here. I hadn’t realized this was where we were going. It made me think of the beginning of all this. We had almost gone north then, when the first group of raiders had come through Chicago, and instead had slipped away from the slaughter and traveled south. We had just barely managed to avoid being suffocated, chased, and eventually surrounded by three different gangs. There had been a brief battle while authority was established, but then they had settled into something of a merged group.

As the wagon of sorts rolled us closer to the massive heap of terror and corruption, the boy beside me shivered. I glanced at him. His face was as white as it felt my own might have been. I patted him on the back, trying to be somewhat reassuring, but he didn’t seem to notice. He still hadn’t spoken a word, but I knew he was young. Old enough obviously to have been around when the fall happened, but still young enough that all this was a nightmare to him. In retrospect though, it was a nightmare to me as well.

The two wagons were brought closer together, and the one child began reaching for the other wagon in desperation, but the woman holding him pulled him back and held him tight. We traveled perhaps two miles into the city before there were any true signs that there were any persons living here. And then it was like crossing a river. There was this area that was somewhat cleared of rubble, and then there were the makeshift tents and lean-to’s, and some of the cars that were haphazardly lying among the rubble appeared to be lived in as well. The further into the ‘city’ we went, the more grandiose the attempt to copy living conditions. And then there were no more living spaces, but heads peered out of buildings. The people in the inner parts seemed to be occupying the remnants that huddled everywhere. All of them were in various stages of falling down or rotting, but they still made shelters from the elements, so they were practical. I noticed though that most of the buildings that were marked condemned were not inhabited. So they still believed they were prone to the plague.

Finally we were stopped in a big cleared area, with a large pen in the middle of it. We were roughly taken out of the cart and herded into the pen like animals, where the pen was closed. At last I was right up close to the people from the other cart, and a brief sense of relief coursed through me to see that neither Tara nor father was among them.

For quite a while, we were left there, as men began filling the clearing. I was surprised by the number of them. They eyed us and made gestures towards us as they talked with each other. And then, a single man strode through the crowd and climbed atop the back of a semi that lay overturned alongside the pen. He waved to the men gathered, then motioned for them to stop talking.

“Our party has returned, with these fine catches, so we’ll start the bidding.” I felt my mouth drop open. They were going to auction us off? Using what for payment?

They grabbed one of the women first, and began bidding on her. They were using low numbers, reaching five before they finally sold her. The next woman, younger, fetched a higher price. A snicker inducing eight. They auctioned off two of the children, then came towards me. The teen stepped in front of me and refused to move, so they pulled him out instead. I watched him with a feeling of dread in my chest. He was sold for six, and lined up with the others that had been sold. His hands were bound, and tied to his feet. With the boy out of the way, the men who came into the cage grabbed me next. As I was led out of the pen and into the clearing, I felt my breath catching in my lungs. I could barely see straight, the fear was so strong. I looked around trying to find a face that might have belonged to the voice in the night that had stayed my escape into the clutches of death. I stumbled on a crack in the pavement, and a few of the men muttered to themselves. “Klutzy,” “dimwitted,” they said. They started my bidding low, at only one. It jumped to three, and then just as they were about to call it, a voice in the middle spoke up. “Four,” it said. My hopes soared. It was the voice! Trying to hide my excitement, I peered through the crowd trying to find the owner of the voice.

But the auctioneer called it and I was roughly hauled down to the end of the line and stood next to the teen. Two men roughly grabbed my arms and yanked them forward, binding them with course thick ropes. The strands bit into my wrists, forcing my hands close together. Once they had finished tying them, they took one end of the rope, and ran it down through the arms of the teenager next to me, and tied it to my ankle, before tying my other hand to my other ankle. I stared for a moment, and then felt my heart in my throat. The man had bought both of us. (Because of me?) We were both going to go with the man who had promised me freedom!

We waited like that until all the other people had been sold, and the crowd began to disperse. The auctioneer left as well, and three men stepped forward in front of us. Various men from the crowd came forward to claim their purchases. Each man in turn pulled out ration or water packages from their clothing and handed them to the men guarding us, pointing out various persons in the lineup. Some of the ones who had bought women obviously had some pretty bad ideas in mind, making a show of puffing out their chests and roughly hauling the women off. Others seemed casual as if buying people was pretty common and normal.

The teen and I waited with breaths held as all the others were taken, and we were left waiting, until at last, we were the only ones left at the head of the empty square. For a few moments, I was afraid we had been left there, and would be auctioned off again to someone else.

And then a man came forward. He was small, and somewhat timid. He scurried to pull out ten packages, four of which were water. “The master says I am to collect his things in his stead. Here is his payment, which he gave me in trust.” The guard looked him over for a moment, then shook his head. I couldn’t see his face, but I heard a grin in his voice. “And what if I was to tell your master that you indulged in his riches without permission, and tried to buy them with only nine?” The small man stared at him for a moment, then lowered his head. He withdrew another package from a different back bag surreptitiously and slipped it into the hidden palm of the guard. The guard looked at him hard for a long moment as if he was still going to cause trouble for him, then he took the ten pouches and stepped aside to let the little man through.

Without waiting for the possibility of more trouble, the little man scurried over to us and took hold of my rope where it passed through the arms of the boy with me. Pulling gently, he bid us to follow him, but the boy resisted. I turned to him. In a small whisper, I urged him to come along. “We’re getting out of here. The man who bought us, he’s getting us out of here.” The boy stared at me with huge disbelieving eyes. “If we stay, there’ll be trouble. Even if he doesn’t get us out, we can figure an escape later, when there isn’t anyone to stop us.” He hedged for a second longer, but a grating look from the guard set his feet to movement, stumbling beside me as we followed the little man.

He led us through the wreckage and ramble, toward the northwestern edge of the great city that once was. We walked for a long time, the little man glancing at the roads behind us every short distance. He muttered in a small voice about slave thieves who might come after us if we didn’t hurry, but otherwise remained silent.

We reached what must have been the edge of the city, and headed towards a tall house. It was mostly intact, though it seemed the roof might buckle at any given time. The windows were broken out, a few shards clinging for dear life, lest they fall and shatter on the unforgiving pavement below. The place was in bad repair, but it also seemed to be one of the best shelters around.

The small man led us up the front stairs, and knocked on the door once. We waited for only a short time before it was opened. Another man stood there, tough looking and somewhat menacing. He gave us a brief glance, then turned to the shorter man. “What’s all this then?” his voice had a surprisingly deep accent; Scottish I would have guessed. The short man held out the ropes to him. “These are the ones that master bought today.”

The foreign man looked at us a little closer. “The young one couldn’t likely hold a log without keeling, and the other one is lanky. Doesn’t look like he could hold his own very well.” The little man shrugged. “I didn’t pick them.” With a grunt the big man took hold of the rope and roughly hauled us through the door.

Once the door was shut and the smaller man had disappeared through a doorway, the bigger man untied our ropes and stood glowering at us. “I guess I’ll put you in the parlor till the master is ready to see you.” He motioned for us to go through a door across the hallway from where the first man had left. Inside, we were bid to sit on a well-worn couch in the middle of the room, and the big man leaned against the doorway with folded arms.

As we waited I let my eyes trace the room around us. There were no real furnishings besides the couch and two tall-backed chairs. The carpet seemed to have been a deep red color, perhaps the same as fresh blood. There were thick curtains on the windows draped all the way to the floor. A chandelier hung from the ceiling, its upturned bulbs replaced with candles. The walls were a dust tinted color I imagined must have been white once.

A while later, I heard creaking as someone came down a set of stairs and down the hallways. The door drape opened, and a tall thin man came into the room. He was dressed in very nice clothing for the people whose company he kept. His hair was nicely combed, and he smelled and looked as though he had recently bathed. He came to the head of the room and stood looking at us silently for a moment. Then he clasped his hands behind his back and strode to the window, looking out as if gazing on a field of flowers.

“I was once a statesman, you know. A very prominent one. I was a representative. I went before the president with important matters of state, and attended many posh events. I do say though, that the word used to extend a little further than pure water, real food, and cotton clothing. Silks, halibut, and wine. That used to be the definition.” He continued staring out the window, lost to the world around him.

Finally he turned and returned to the front of the room, lowering his frame into one of the tall chairs. “Now, I get to return lost boys to desperate fathers.” My heart jumped. Father? My father couldn’t have contacted this man, could he?

“A man from Canada came to me a few weeks ago, looking for his son.” I felt my stomach drop and my throat tightened a little. Not my father then. “He said that it was a teenaged boy, with blond hair and blue eyes. Pale skin. I couldn’t tell which of you was him.” I glanced at the boy beside me. He was looking at the carpet with a guilty look.

“I would guess that would be you, young one?” The boy nodded. “It’s me. I’m Mitchell.” The man nodded, folding his long fingers daintily. “I suppose then we’ll have to get you back to your father. As for you, young man. Have you any family looking for you?” I nodded. “My father and sister.” He looked thoughtful a moment.

“We could pay you for my return. The price you bought me for, and whatever you think it would be worth to return me.” His eye got a glint to it that I couldn’t read. It sort of seemed hungry and malicious.

“Well any matter, you may stay here until we have this boy sorted out and returned to his desperate father.” His demeanor was that of someone who was sort of bored. He rose and left the room, while the other man entered. He led us up the stairs and to a room on the second floor. There were two small beds there, divided by a large curtain hung across the room. It kind of looked like a hospital curtain. I shuddered at the thought.

We went to sleep, but my sleep was fitful. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that something funky was underlying this weird exchange. Why would the man buy us up, just to return us to our fathers? Was there truly such an honest, kind hearted man left in the world? And a former politician no less?

Now

I sat staring out the small window on the tiny building we were staying in. The town people liked to call it a cabin, but it didn’t come close. The sides and roof were put together out of ramshackle pieces of buildings, kind of like the people of Waterville had done so many ages ago. But these people were newer to the idea than those one had been and so these huts didn’t look quite as elegant as the others did. Although, this was just a guest house, so perhaps there just wasn’t quite the personal touch that the other ones had. I didn’t know.

Either way, there were two small windows across the room from each other, put together with thick plasti-glass likely salvaged from houses in ruined cities. There were curtains hanging from them, mismatched as plaids and polka dots. I had drawn this one open to peer out, across the vastly empty land that lay before us. This was Nenallee, and we were on the border of Canada. This was as far as anyone was allowed to go, lest they be hunted down and murdered. Even if you tried to return to American soil, you would be killed for your knowledge.

I hadn’t told the people of this little town our destination. That was part of the arrangement I had with the leader of Canada. I would never betray my knowledge, or the fact of my knowledge. I was hoping that by bringing Alec with me, I wasn’t putting myself in danger, or him. I felt a deep sense of worry that I would get him killed. But I was hoping that once I explained my reasoning, he would be allowed not only to live, but to see the wonders there were to behold.

We had arrived in Nenallee the previous evening, and had been welcomed warmly. We had been put up in one of the guest cabins on the northern edge, where there was an invisible line that kept the town within safety. This town had quite a literal edge, as all the buildings on this side stopped parallel with each other, and the small dirt road ended at the same spot. There was a small sign with a large letter ‘C’ painted on it in red. A very distinct proclamation that this was where Canada started, enter at your own risk.

I rubbed my dry hands together for warmth. There was a small fire burning in the fireplace along one wall, but it had only just been revived and the little hut was yet to warm enough to reach this side. There was a tiny table with a chair at it though, so I had retreated here to write some. I felt we should stay a day to let word of my presence spread. Likely one of the sentries had seen me. You could never see them, but they could always see you.

By the time I entered that country, they would know I was coming. Most of the sentries were informed that my visitation was to be allowed, at any given time, so I wouldn’t be killed on entry.

So I would spend today writing. I had gotten some good writing in the day before, when we had woken to find a thick frost coating everything. Alec had watched in awe as the frost hanging over our fire had thawed and begun to drip. He had spent a while gathering the stuff up in a pan and then he had watched closely as it melted when set near the fire. Then he had drunk it. His mouth had twisted a little, as he realized that the frost was only as good as the surface it had been collected from. Which in this place, was dead trees, and rocks, all of which were continually covered in dust most of the year.

I had shown him how to use a thin piece of cloth to filter most of the grit out and he had done that for a while.

Now, as I stared out the window, the cold trying its best to seep deep within my bones, I gazed back at the memory of my previous visit.

Then

The heat was not so bad here as it had been further south. We had been on the road for most of the day, and we were all tired and a little hungry. These people didn’t stop for anything shy of bladder relief, but walked with a kind of drive that reminded me of the camels I had read about. Slow and steady, never wavering.

I had insisted this morning that I would like to travel with them when they returned the boy to his father, telling them that my father lived northwesterly of here. The regal looking man had finally agreed that I could accompany them, as long as I didn’t slow them up too much. They said the border was only a day’s walk, and they wanted to get there ASAP.

After we had eaten a pretty impressively sized meal, we had begun the long trek north. A few men had come around as we left the city, to see where we were going. The man had stated that it was none of their business, but he’d left some of his things to see to it that he still had a home and possessions to return to. I was sure that by ‘things’ he meant the people he had bought.

And so now, we walked. We had crossed through a rather large forest of dead trees, before coming out to a field that seemed without end. I could just imagine it with tall wavering grass, stretched out goldenly beneath the bright sun.

But the truth stood out so plainly, that soon I shook the images. The ground was ashen and grey, lifeless. Each footfall landed on hard, cracked dirt that seemed as if it might never have been fertile. And yet, the things I had read said that Wisconsin had been one of the biggest producers of crops, way back when.

As the evening sun slowly lent a reddening cast to the land, we came to a stop. The man said that we would camp here and continue on to Canada in the morning. We were close, but there was still a ways to go, and best not to do it in the dark. So we pitched some makeshift tents the four men who were with us putting up a smaller one for me and the boy.

Early in the morning, I woke to a scuffle. Dirt was kicked in my face, jolting me upright. I had to wipe at my face to clear the dirt away before I could see what was happening. Someone was trying to wrestle the teenager to the ground and get his arms behind him. I jumped up and swung at the back of the man’s head, causing him to stumble away. He caught his balance and rounded on me. I ducked as he swung wildly, his fist hitting the upright piece of wood that held the middle of the tent up.  The pole crunched in two and as he lunged for another attempt, the ceiling of the tent fluttered downward. Caught in the fabric, the man ended up entwined on the ground, twisting and jabbing in an attempt to free himself. Covered but not caught, I used my hands to gently shove the covering of the tent aside. I found myself facing the sharp ridge of a long knife.

Looking up, I saw that the boy was on his knees with his arms tied behind him, a club with nails sticking out of it held above his head in a threat that didn’t need to be voiced. I looked over at the tall man, who was standing a ways out of the fray. “What are you doing? What is this?” The man shrugged. “I just want to be sure that I am properly compensated. If he won’t give me the amount of payment I believe I am entitled to, then I will give him the boy’s head for his trouble and tell him I will send the rest of him when I have been properly compensated.”

“Well, why not just sit down with him and discuss it with him? Surely if he loves his son enough to try to find him in this world, he would be willing to give you whatever you ask.” He shook his head. “You naïve young man. Nothing in this world is simple. If I want to be properly paid, I have to ensure it, with a little show of violence. He would hedge and hem if I handed him the boy and held my hand out. That’s supplicating, as if I owe him some kind of sympathy break. No, the only way to get what I deserve out of this matter is to show him that I am in charge. Life itself is a show of politics. I have the upper hand, and emphasis is the key.”

I drew in a deep breath and sighed. I understood now how things got where they were. One man said ‘tit’, the other said ‘tat’, and the ball was rolling down the hill. I shook my head. “So you bought the boy so you could hold him hostage to his father?” He shrugged. “Well, if I hadn’t, he’d be being beaten into a proper slave, and in a year or so, he’d never even allow the idea of possible freedom pass through his head. I am doing him a favor.”

With that, he waved a hand passively and the man standing over the younger boy hauled him to his feet and pushed him to make him start walking. The leader motioned for the man with the knife in my face. “Take him and tie him to a tree. We’ll deal with him later.”

The man with the knife gestured. “You heard the man, on your feet.” I rose and allowed myself to be led off to the edge of the dead trees before us as the boy disappeared into them with the men who would kill him if the price wasn’t right.

He chose a tree and began pulling some rope from a sack off his back. For a moment, the rope snagged on something and he had to use his knife hand to try and free it. I took my moment. Pretending to stumble over a large root sticking out of the ground, I pushed against the tree and shoved my weight backward as hard as I could. The man dropped the bag and knife to try and catch me. The force of my weight knocked him off balance for a second and I drove my elbow into his stomach. He hit the ground on his back as I landed on top of him. I stood quickly and turned, bringing my foot around to kick him in the head as hard as I could. He grunted once, then lay still.

Turning, I saw the man who had been trapped in the tent, just lunging out of the fabric. Grabbing up the knife, I didn’t slow as I raced past him toward the spot in the trees where the leader had disappeared with the Canadian boy. He lunged to grab me and I stabbed the knife at him as I passed him. He cried out and I didn’t turn to see where I had hit him, instead racing into the trees.

I slowed my pace as I entered the woods, stopping behind a tree to scan for the other people. In the distance, perhaps a hundred yards away, I could see their backs as they continued through the woods. One of the men was glancing back, probably startled by the cry of their fellow man.

They kept tracking through the tall trees though, headed north. After the wary man turned back around, I began creeping through the trees, using their trunks and some of the thicker patched of underbrush to hide my presence. I figured I had a small while before they even might hurt the boy. They had their negotiations to attend to first, and that would give me a chance to get close.

After a short walk, maybe half a mile, they reached a large clearing, perhaps the size of a medium house. There were three men already there, obviously nervous as they glanced around the forest. As the group I had been with came to a stop on their side of the clearing, the man in charge motioned for the two men holding the boy to stop where they were. He strode alone to meet the three men standing there. The one in the middle, markedly older than the other two, clasped his hands together in eagerness and worry.

I crept closer through the brush, trying hard to be silent. The dead growth around me seemed to want to break, some of it snapping or creaking with my passage. It was frustratingly hard to keep from breaking anything. Each time a sharp snap or dull crack issued, I stopped in my tracks and ducked down, hoping I hadn’t been seen. By now the strain of being quiet had my blood pumping so hard and fast I feared that it was loud enough they could hear it. My head felt like it was rushing, and I sweated with the exertion of creeping.

Finally and at long last, I was right behind the three persons on the near edge of the clearing. The two men who were holding the young boy were watching intently as their leader seemed to be displaying his masterful control of the situation. He kept gesturing at the boy, and at one point drew his finger across his neck, an indication of what he was saying.

I licked my lips and brought the knife to ready. I would need to be quick to get the upper hand. I didn’t know if I could get both of them before one of them tried to kill me. I didn’t know if I could get even one of them. It had been one thing to blindly swing a knife to fend off a direct attack, but to use this knife with intention, against the backs of men… I didn’t know if I could do it.

And then I knew I had to. The man was gesturing to the two men to bring the boy to his knees. I had a better chance of hitting both of the men now. Without the boy in the path, I could take my knife and swing it straight across…

As I stepped forward, knife raised, a stick uttered such a loud crack that it cause both of the men to jump harshly and turn. I had no choice now. Arching my arm, I put a lot of my weight into sinking the knife into the chest of one of the men. Before I could pull my knife out, the other man had his nail spiked club up, and was bringing it around to bear down on me. The boy lunged sideways underneath of him, and brought the man crashing down to the ground with a loud yell. Without pausing, I brought the knife down solidly into the back of his neck and pulled it sideways. He didn’t make another noise.

Swiftly, I brought the knife around and cut the ropes binding the boy’s arms together. He used his hands to push off the ground and rose. Rubbing his wrists, the boy turned to the men on the other end of the woods.

Starting that direction, I saw the regal looking man staring at us with a large ‘oh’ unspoken on his face. He backed up slowly. The three men with him were glowering at him menacingly. The older man came toward us as the other two grabbed ahold of the politician and dragged his struggling body through the trees and out of sight.

The old threw his arms around the boy and held him closely, nearly crying in his relief and happiness. It seemed he intended to stand there like that forever, arms wrapped around the boy I guessed was his son.

Then a noise interrupted. Loud crashing through the dead brush and trees. Turning, I saw the man I had knocked out rushing through the trees towards us. He obviously didn’t know that his boss had most likely died. He had a spiked club in one hand, and he was bashing everything in his path.

As he reached the clearing, he growled at me. “You! I’m gonna-!” He looked around the clearing. “Where is he? Where’s Gladdin?” I gestured in the direction that the two men had taken him, and he gave me a suspicious glance. Club hefted, he walked slowly into the trees. We watched silently as he disappeared. A few minutes later there was the sound of a brief struggle, and then the two large men who had accompanied the Canadian returned to the clearing. One of them had shed his large jacket, and I didn’t entirely want to know why.

Turning, I was just in time to see the old man strike the boy across the face. I drew back in surprise almost as if I had been hit instead. “What were you thinking? Were you even thinking at all? I told you what would happen if you went to America! I told you!”

The boy looked at the ground, a hand on his slightly pink cheek. “I’m sorry,” He mumbled. “You’re sorry? You run away to America, get captured, and almost murdered and you say sorry?!” The boy didn’t respond. I stared at him. He had run away from home? I wondered why.

“But father-.” The old man raised a hand. “No. Not a word. I don’t want to hear your excuses. I told you flat out how the Americans have become, and you not only directly disobeyed me, but it’s a slap in the face that you would come down here.” The boy moved to speak again and the father raised his hand as if to hit again. I stepped between him and his son, looking the man full on. In surprise, he stepped back and gaped at me, then stuttered. “Why you- How dare you- What gives you the right-.” I shook my head, glaring at him.

“He’s already been punished enough. This last while has been quite a trial on him. I myself saw him suffer. And in fact, you ought to be thanking this American. If it wasn’t for me, your boy would be vulture food in the middle of an unnamed desert, in a spot you would never find, no matter how many fingers you sent out. Or, he’d be going home in two boxes, because that man would surely have murdered him while you discussed his worth.”

The man just stared at me, poised as if to strike. Slowly though he lowered his hand as his face softened. He glanced between me and the boy behind me. Finally he nodded and heaved a sigh. “Yes. Yes, you’re right of course. I thank you for saving my son.” He glanced away, then looked at me. “I guess not all Americans are so terrible. But why would you save him? Is it payment you seek?” I shook my head. “No. not payment. I want to go home. I want to find my father, and my sister.” He looked deep into my eyes for a moment then nodded again.

“Yeah. I think we can help you with that. You of course can’t go home the way you’ve come. If you go south anywhere in Wisconsin, you’ll be caught and killed. Likely, even though we’ve dispatched of the witnesses, it won’t take long for news to spread that that foul man has disappeared. And even though infighting is large amongst them, they don’t take well to having someone else kill one of their own.”

I nodded. He was right. If I tried to pass back through Green Bay, I’d be dead before I could even reach the city itself.

“Come. You will be our guest for a couple days, while we prepare you for your journey. You must travel far to the west before you can go home. Wherever you hail from.” I gave a small smile. He had kind of a funky way of talking. I’d read most of it in books, but to hear it in speech, was something else.

The boy stepped out from behind me at last, awkwardly rubbing his neck. The father didn’t say anything to him, but instead turned and began walking toward the north. The boy and I struck off after him, and the two large men fell in behind us at a short distance.

The boy was silent as we walked through the vastly dead forest, obviously both greatly ashamed and embarrassed. I left him alone to stew with his thoughts. He surprised me though at one point, turning and thanking me for saving his life. I shrugged. “I couldn’t let you die. You actually saved my life to, I figure.” He gave me a confused look. “If you hadn’t run away, your father would not have been looking for you, and I would have probably been sold to the highest bidder. Or maybe even just killed instead of taken. I don’t see men taken very often. Occasionally. But usually they die. It was an error in judgment that saw me taken, I should have tried to run for safety, but I was thinking of my family, and I didn’t want them found to save my life.”

The boy stared at me a moment. “You gave your life over to those- those barbarians, to save your family’s life?” I nodded. He turned and kept walking in silence for a moment, before continuing. “I don’t know if there are many in Canada who would do the same. I have a hard time imagining myself dying for my father. Ever since the crash, it’s been something of a dynasty there.” I didn’t answer.

We continued our journey in absolute silence. I wasn’t sure whether I was in America still or not. There was nothing to mark a real difference. The forest was still thick, and very much dead.

And then it wasn’t. I stopped and stared in awe. In front of me stood a tall tree with brown bark. Brown with life. I looked up at the branches overhead, and thought I’d either died, or was dreaming. (Green. Green and alive.) It swayed gently in the breeze. The leaves on the tree (leaves!) fluttered with the gentle force of the light wind. I could hear them rustle and whisper as they brushed against one another. I felt a tear in the bottom of my eye…

The boy grasped my shoulder. “You’ve never seen one of those, have you?” I shook my head, unable yet to pull my eyes away from its absolute beauty. It was quite a miracle. I walked up to it and reached out a shaking hand. When I touched the bark of the tree, I got goose bumps all over. It was somewhat rough to the touch, but yet, it was smooth at the same time. The contours and lines, the grooves and notches… I couldn’t tear myself away.

“Come along, brownie. There are plenty of them where we’re going.” My eyebrows scrunched in confusion at the old man’s words. The boy snickered softly then made an effort to straighten his face. “Brownie is what we call the Americans, because your land has no green trees left in it.”

I glanced once more up into the bright green leaves, so gently and daintily rustling in the wind, then I turned and followed the man once more. Most of the trees and brush were still dead around here, but I began to notice signs of life. A bush here, a small tree there… And then I saw something that had me almost as awestruck as the tree. I knelt down to get a good look at it. There amongst the ruined forest, was a small, purple flower. It had small rounded leaves, which gradually turned lighter as it came to the end. I stroked the petals gently. They felt somewhat powdery, so soft that I feared even my touch might break it.

The boy nodded. “That’s a violet. There’s a lot of them too, and even bigger, even brighter flowers where we’re going.” I rose reluctantly and kept walking. Everywhere around me, there were increasingly more signs of forest life. I felt like a small child, the way I couldn’t help but stare. It was somewhat embarrassing, but I simply could not help it. Such wonders and treasures people hadn’t seen in America for generations.

And then we came out of the trees to a spot where the land came to an edge, a cliff ridge that looked over a large valley. I didn’t want to move from this spot ever again. There were so many trees, I couldn’t see an end. They stretched for such a distance, that it seemed there must be thousands of them. Amongst them there seemed to be a small town. There were several buildings strewn amid the tall trees. I noticed that some of the trees had flowers on them.

We finally began down the other side of the hill, where it sloped gently downward toward the town. The field was covered with grass. Tall, wavering grass; bright greens and golden in the bright sun. I ran my hands through it as I walked through it. I felt bad about breaking it as I walked on it. It was so beautiful, and here I was, tromping through it. Mitchell told me that the grass would spring back upright and still be alive, after we had passed through it.

Finally, we reached the town. There were people there at the edge of it, and a woman ran out to meet us. She threw her arms around Mitchell, crying and exclaiming over her boy. This had to be his mother. I felt my throat tighten. A mother. Oh. I could have cried.

But then she turned and grabbed me up in her arms too, almost squishing me and the boy together. At last, she released me. Backing up, she wiped her eyes. She was tall for a woman, and her blonde hair shone like any of the tall grass I had walked through.

Once the excitement of our return had dulled to gentle pleasure they led us to a large building. It seemed like an assembly hall when we went in. A large meal was laid out on long tables. The smells alone made me feel as if I had died and gone to heaven. (Real food!) It was even better than what had been served me in Waterville years ago. Meat and potatoes, veggies, fruits, pies, cakes…

I didn’t know how Mitchell could call it a dynasty… With such good food, green trees, and peace. How could he see it as a bad thing at all? I completely gorged myself on all the bounties available. There was one table just for drinks. There was an array of different kinds of drinks. I wasn’t sure about them. I drank just the water at first, but then Mitchell talked me into trying the lemonade. I felt my lips pucker together as the sourness of it made my mouth feel pinched. I gave it a look of betrayal and set the cup back down amidst laughter from some of the people around me. Mitchell added some white stuff to it and stirred it, then handed it back. “Try it now, Brownie.” I gave him a dubious look, but drank it. I really liked it.

When the meal was over, everyone disappeared except the old man and his family. His face grew somber. “We will let you stay here for the night, then we’ll bring you west a ways. After that, you’ll have to leave.” I raised an eyebrow. “Can I come back? I’d like to bring my family here and settle here. This is an amazing place. I could totally see my sister loving it here.” The old man shook his head.

“No. No, I’m sorry, but I can’t allow that. We don’t want the waters muddied.” I didn’t understand. “Well, we won’t go in the water. And besides. Who are you, to tell me I can’t come live here?” He huffed.

“I am the president of Canada. That’s why I can tell you no.” I felt the blood drain from my face. (The president?) “Oh,” was all I could say. “Now listen. I’m really glad you saved my boy from death, and helped to get him home safely. But we don’t need extra people here to eat our food, and take up space, and add more people to the population. And we especially don’t want any Americans taking over our land. We have done the necessary things to keep this beautiful land, and keep it nice, and I’m not about to give that up out of sympathy. I’ll help you get to a safe enough spot to go south, and I’ll give you provisions and maps to get you to a place where you can get more supplies to aid your journey. But that’s it. I owe you the same favor you did for my boy. Helping you get home.”

I started to object, to say that I had done more than just get him home. But I could see by the set of his face that I wasn’t going to win this argument, no matter what. I finally closed my mouth and nodded. They took me to a house and put me up in a spare bedroom. I noticed that even here, in this beautiful place, the houses lacked newer things. The paint was old, and many spots on the houses were in need of repair. Yet, they were in better shape than most of the houses down south.

They had all their windows, and the roofs didn’t leak, nor did sunlight stream through any of the walls or frames. The floors and windows were clean, and though some of the cloth items were a little threadbare, they weren’t so entirely frail.

There was no electricity here, but they had some nice alternatives in use. Oil lamps, and candles, and even a few solar powered lights. Most of those were what they called garden solar lights. I didn’t understand that, but they worked.

We spent the next two days walking, before reaching another town. This one seemed to have reached a more impressive size and layout before the crash, with higher tech buildings and a lot more of them. However, it didn’t make much difference when they couldn’t use any of their vast arrays of electronic gismos.

We stayed there for the night, and continued in the morning. We went through another town that night, and one more two days after that. I had no idea how far we had traveled by then, I didn’t know the layout of the land.

But Mitchell told me we were almost to his home. They lived in what was currently the biggest town in Canada. I guess a lot of people had traveled here after society collapsed. It used to be the middle of South Dakota, but it had been a part of Canada for a while now. All of North Dakota had been absorbed into Canada, but the southern half of South Dakota still stood out as American soil.

Once we reached the town we had been heading to, they immediately began preparations for my departure. I was somewhat sad that I would be leaving already, but I also felt I needed to return to father and Tara. I wanted to be sure they were alright.

At long last, the morning came for me to leave. Mitchell came by to say good bye. I stopped him before he could leave. “You said it was a dynasty here. I can see that things are a little strict about outsiders, but how could you say that it is bad here?” He shook his head. “No, you couldn’t see it. It is terrible in your country, and I see that now. But things are kept on such a tight leash here. People must do as father says, or they are punished severely. Everyone must work so very hard, and they are given so little. I just wish things weren’t so tight here.”

I looked at him for a moment, then turned to finish stuffing a back sack with the provisions Mitchell’s mom had laid out for me. “Maybe things should be so tight up here, because then they don’t turn out the way that my country did. And most other countries. I imagine the more crowded a place was, the worse it got. Honestly, I think the difference is huge. I mean you guys don’t have to worry about someone dragging you off in your sleep and killing you or enslaving you.” He didn’t answer, but I knew he was thinking.

Not too much later, I started off back into America, and toward home.

Now

The chill air around us caused our breath to rise in small puffs of steam as we stood in the large clearing. We had left Nenallee bright and early, just before the sun would begin its climb into the sky. We didn’t want to attract attention, so we had crept out of there like thieves before the people could wake.

Now we stood on the line between Canada and America. It was the moment I both feared and longed for. The moment I could return. I inhaled deeply, casting a look to the sky. Thick grey clouds had built, and they darkened by the minute so that it seemed to still be night. They appeared ready to spill over any moment, bathing the world once more in cleansing water.

At long last, I began walking forward, into the northernmost lands. Beside me, Alec too cautiously strode forward. He had heard enough stories about Canada to instill an almost stifling fear, visible in his eyes, and audible in his short deep breaths like he was entering water that was so cold his feet lost feeling. His eyes darted around the gloomy trees, trying to make out any arrows or rifles in the shadows and niches that seemed like they might hide death.

When we had crossed more than a hundred feet of the country that was forbidden, and we remained alive, I breathed easier. Apparently they had decided to let us live. They would have killed us before now if they were going to. Perhaps they were curious about the audacity of an old man, or maybe they had been told to allow me to bring my companion with me. In either case, we would be allowed to travel within the great country that was Canada.

When we had traveled almost half a mile, we came to the beginning of the beautiful trees. Most of them had lost their leaves, and only the brown of the bark showed they were living. But some held onto their needles, as evergreens are self-described to do, and their brilliant deep greens and thick pine smell stood out brazenly against the greys and blacks and ash that tried to consume all. I turned when I realized that Alec had fallen behind. He stood firmly rooted to the spot, head tilted and mouth hung slightly open. His wide eyes tried to take it all in, shooting from branch to branch, needle to needle. I imagine he looked much as I had all those years ago, when I too had first laid eyes on these beautiful wonders of nature.

I allowed him a few moments to absorb the sight, but then I beckoned him to follow me. We still had quite a ways to go, and it was looking pretty ominous. I was sure it would snow any time now. And while I wanted him to see this wonderful and delightful event, I wanted it to be somewhere warm where he could enjoy it.

He at last tore his gaze away from the boughs of the trees and reluctantly followed me. As we met up with, passed, and left behind each new tree in succession, he would gaze at it for the whole time it was in sight. He finally got over his initial awe of the trees after passing the hundredth or so, focusing more on the rest of the scenery. Since I had been here last, the entire forest had grown much. There were bushes and tall grass, and the whole forest smelled alive.

And I could hear squirrels. I had heard that some of the wildlife had come back, after having spent a century further north. I guess it was true. Alec kept craning his head, trying to determine what exactly was making such noise. Likely he figured it was some kind of weapon being ratcheted or something. When the critter darted across the path, Alec stopped short and stared in renewed awe. He pointed after it, stuttering. “Did you- I mean, what- What was that?” I smiled. “That, my friend, was a squirrel. It is a rodent of sorts, related I think in a way to the rat, mouse, and gopher. Chipmunks too, I’d wager.” His brows furrowed, showing his further confusion. “Yes. It was a living, breathing, moving animal,” I said. He turned to stare up the tree the little creature had retreated to, where it clung to the bark and chattered away some admonition or other for disturbing his peace.

We had been walking for a good portion of the day, when we finally reached our destination. AnchorVille. It was the largest city this close to the border, and home I knew to the president and his family. This was where I intended to stay for a while, with Alec, while I showed him some of the wonders that Canada had to offer, which America too had once sported with pride. Before the war, the logging, the fires… Before the plague and the Fall; America had been a green and thriving place, even better than Canada was now.

I could only wonder what the other half of the world was going through. Being here on this continent, without reliable shipping lanes, or airports, or any sort of worldwide commerce or travel, there was absolutely no way to know what the other side of the world was going through. I could imagine though that perhaps places like Africa, Cambodia and some distant parts of other more primitive countries that never leaned so heavily on the technological crutches, had fared better than most places, as their fall would not have been so great. For sure, some places may not have noticed it at all, if no one came to tell them or rob them.

At any rate, the only thing I could be sure of was the situation that currently held this continent in its thrall. Which was that right now, no one alive in my own country cared too much about what happened to the world around them, just whether or not their stomachs would be full the next day. They couldn’t care less if green things grew, or animals walked the earth. In fact, animals walking the land right now would be seriously endangered anyway, so there was no use in even trying to bring them back right now.

As we entered the grand city of Anchorville, we were greeted by a large crowd of people. The man at the front threw his arms around me in a hug that would have shamed a bear. Which to stand back and look at him, he greatly resembled, especially with his thick fur cloak wrapped tightly around his large frame.

“Ah,” he exclaimed with deep satisfaction. “Cam, old man! It has been many years since your last visit. We are pleased to see you again.” Even his voice, deep and hearty, resounded with the might of a grizzly. “And, may I ask, who is it you travel with, old friend?”

I swallowed thickly for a moment. “This-” I cleared my suddenly dry throat and began again. “This is Alec, son of Damien.” There was a heavy silence amongst the people, who had been whispering excitedly. And then the large man grasped Alec in one of his arms, and ruffled his hair. “We-he-hell then! Any son of Damien is welcome here too! I say though, that’s enough talk. There’s a FEAST awaiting us!” With that, he dragged Alec and me off in search of the food we could all smell.

As we entered the large barn cleared and set for a banquet, the huge and dark clouds that had so threatened our journey finally released their bounty, spilling soft white flakes of snow to coat the ground and hide for months the beautiful green forestry. Alec was once again caught spellbound as he stared out the doorway at the gently falling, dipping and swaying, tender crystals of snow.

The large man sat down beside me as we watched Alec watch the snow. “Does he know then?” I glanced at him. “No. I’m sure he doesn’t. His mother swore she’d never tell him, when she went away with him.” My friend put a hand on my arm, comfortingly. “But since he’s been with you, why haven’t you told him?” I licked my lips, trying to think. Finally I shook my head. “No. No, I think he’s better off not knowing. No sense in dragging that up before I have to.”

My large friend gazed at Alec for a long moment. “Well, things may get a little tight here for a while. You will have to stay here for quite a while now, possibly the winter through.” I turned to him in surprise. “The winter?” He nodded. “Oh, for sure. Most likely. I mean, as far as we can figure, winter’s set in with a passion. This gentle snowfall is only the beginning. By morning we’re expecting maybe a foot of snow. There’ll be no getting out once that’s come.”

I stared out the large open door of the barn. Suddenly those large fluffy flakes didn’t look so peaceful, and coming here this time of year didn’t seem like such a grand idea. I didn’t know if I had a winter left in me, let alone here.

But I had no choice now. I had to stay here until it was possible to get out again, realistically. Maybe the snow would slow a little, and we could be out of here within a week.

The next morning when I went to the window of the apartment building we had been put up in, I stared in dismayed awe at the sight that I beheld. The world had disappeared. Or rather, it looked like someone had done a hasty job using white-out, and left smudges in some spots which were actually building sides standing out bluntly against the white backdrop that last night’s bounty had provided.

I could see from here, on the third floor, that there was way more than a foot of snow covering the world outside. My large friend, the grandson of Mitchell, had been right: there would be no getting out today, or the next, and probably, realistically, before the spring thaw.

With no other real choice, I sighed as I sat at the small table beneath the window and pulled out my pen. As I touched the tip to the paper, it refused to yield any of its black liquid pictures that depicted the story I was trying to tell. Looking at it in irritation, I shook it and tried again. Still nothing. I realized it must be from the cold. Wrapping the thin little stick in my hands to warm it, I gave a wry little smile.

People for years had loved to keep track of who invented what. The phone invented by Bell; the light bulb from Edison; and airplanes by the Wright brothers, as examples. But who out there knew, or even cared, who had invented something so simple and elegant, so useful, as the pen? Who had thought to take plastic, or as they probably used before plastic, wood, and wrap it around another piece of the same, filled with ink, of all things, and use it to form letters, sentences, and whole books?

But I’ve wandered again. It happens to me now and again. I don’t always notice it, but it happens. I think I’ve reached that point where my mind has stopped entirely caring what the subject is supposed to be about, and has decided to make up its own rules. Or something. (What was I doing? Oh, yes.) Shaking the pen once more, I put it to paper. This time, the pen relinquished its bounty and traced out the recording I demanded.

At the point in my life that I was currently retelling, there wasn’t much of true interest to record without sounding entirely redundant. I travelled south, through South Dakota, and then headed east through Minnesota, then Wisconsin. I stayed well away from the main roads, and the larger cities. I sometimes passed other people wandering the great empty spaces between towns. Most of them kept to themselves. A few people tried to rob me but I managed to escape and continue on my way. One of those encounters forced me to take a life, but with the desperate situation he was in I told myself he was probably better off for it. I couldn’t help him.

Then

It had taken me more than a month of almost steady walking, but I was almost home. The smell of the air, all ashy and gritty, gave me a sense of relief, and yet of almost grating anticipation. This close, I had to get home. I just had to.

I was nearing the town where the Keep had had his shop, before the gang war had torn the place apart. I wondered if he had ever returned, to take back what was rightfully his, or if it still sat untouched in dust and memory, or if the gangs had discovered the horde and made good their looting.

As I entered the town, I stayed as hidden in shadow as possible, to attract the least amount of attention. I couldn’t tell at first if there was even anyone there, but then I could hear them. Being on my own for so long had greatly attuned my senses, and I could have heard the sounds of hidden life as surely as the deafening boom of a riffle, or the crack of a shotgun.

At first it was just little things: A stifled cough; a scurry of tiny feet; the whisper of clothing. Then I could hear low voices, trying hardest to stay hidden yet daunted by the stranger in their midst. Hidden as I was, even someone who might have recognized me would have to look real hard to truly see me to the point where they would know me.

For a couple blocks I could see the little strip mall, one end of it facing me. All the debris had been cleared from it and piled back on top, leaving no sign that anything had happened to it. I could hear nothing from inside, but that didn’t honestly mean much.

I kept an eye on it as I crept closer and closer down the empty street, waiting anxiously for someone to burst out the door, gun blazing. But they never came, and I reached the brick wall with no trouble. As I slid along the rough bricks, I glanced down all the streets that afforded me a view of their length. Breath held I peered around the edge, toward the front of the stores. When I had at last decided that there would be no attack, I stepped out and walked boldly up to the front door and entered the store.

The Keep sat in his chair behind the counter, eye steadily on me as I made my way over to him. I didn’t pretend to be shopping, instead leaning against the counter and staring him right in the face. “What news then?” He shrugged, glancing around. “Nothing new. Not since the gang war. You know, we almost didn’t get through that one.” I scrunched my brows. He knew well I had been there. What was he playing at?” I gestured around the place. “And your wares suffered no harm?” Again the huge shoulders lifted and fell. “Oh, a few things were stolen right off, weapons and food and such. Nothing else though.” Greater confusion filled me.

“Say though, I do hear there may be a storm brewing, so if you have family, young man, you’d best be getting back to them, and heading out. I hear it’ll be the mother of all storms, if you know what I mean.” I searched his eyes. He was trying to be clever, but not succeeding too well. I thought about it for a moment, and then nodded. “I’m grateful, for sure.” I turned and headed off, but he rose and said, “Hey, wait a minute now. I’ve got your order in. that thing you requested and paid me for, ages ago. Hang up a minute and I’ll get it for you. In fact, why don’t you come on into the receiving room and I’ll get it all packed up for you?” I glanced at the door in time to see the barest edged of heads bobbing along the bottom of the window.

Without hesitation I followed him a direction I’d never seen before. The room curved around and out of sight, before coming to a door. Through the door was a large room with huge garage doors. This must have been a delivery room for trucks, when this had been a real mall ages ago.

For being so large, the man moved swiftly across the room, my tall legs keeping up easily. Finally, he stopped in front of a metal door on the wall. With effort, I helped him open it. He gestured for me to enter. “Now listen up, boy. Your father left a solar light inside here. At the bottom of the stairs. Follow the basement till you get to the other end, then look for a sewer cover on the ground. Its a round metal slab, about three feet across. Reach the bottom, and there is a map of tunnels and exits. You need to get out of here.

“They aren’t looking for you specifically. They like to grab anyone who comes here. They let me keep my shop ‘cause it is an easy trap to walk them into. After you disappeared, your father thought you might come back here, so he paid me in advance and set this up for you to get out. Leave no traces you were there. I don’t know where your father is, but he should be wherever you guys were living before. He said it had kept you guys safe for ages, and was still safe.”

“Well, who is it? Which one of the gangs won, and took over?” He shook his head, peering over his shoulder as the sound of something breaking issued out from the main store. “No time. Go! Your father knows about it. Go!” hesitantly, I pulled the door shut, then turned and bolted recklessly down the mostly black stairs. I heard the Keep yelling behind me. “He ran out the back door! Little shit hit me upside the head, nearly knocked my senses!”

At the bottom of the stairs, I fumbled along the damp walls until my hand brushed something hanging from a nail and made it sway clatter and scrape. Grasping it, I felt along it till I found a button to turn it on. Shining the white beam in both directions, I saw that the basement ran back underneath the building. It was one large cavernous room, with support columns spaced evenly down the middle, dust piled thickly at the edges and so many cobwebs that it was hard to see very far.

A trail seemed to have been used regularly, where the dust and cobwebs had been disturbed. Following this faint path, I walked tentatively along this dark and creepy place. At one point, a large cobweb brushed across my arm. I turned to get a look at it, and it swept over my face and caught in my hair. Shuddering, I brushed it off as fast as I could. Most of these webs likely didn’t have real spiders in them, as insects and bugs had long since been scarce.

At last I reached the end of the underground room. Shining the light around in the dust, I noticed a large round patch on the ground where the dust had been displaced. Feeling around with my fingers, I found a small ridge where the edge of the metal stuck up above the concrete just barely.

Pulling on it, I was surprised with the weight of it. It almost pulled me over onto the floor as I rebounded in surprise. Setting the flashlight down in the dust, which covered up half the lens and left a half cone of light to illuminate my work, I used both hands to grasp the edge of the sewer cover. Using as much of my strength as I could, I hefted at the cover. With a dull scraping noise, the cover lifted slightly, and I turned it to the side. Grabbing it more firmly, I tried to simply move the weight now instead of lifting it, and it slid sideways with a little less trouble. Rearranging my grip, I turned it once more, before I figured it was wide enough for me to pass through.

Grabbing the flashlight once more, I shined the light down into the seeming chasm below. A ladder trailed downward into the darkness, to where the light glinted off of dark water. The smell wafting up through the hole caused me to turn sideways and cover my mouth to stifle a loud groan. I had to go down in there? Who knew what would be in there.

I heard a loud clang against the door that led down here, and I knew I had no choice. The Keep could only stall them so long before they would figure out that I must still be in the stores somewhere. Drawing in a deep breath, I rose and then stepped onto the ladder. It moaned and lightly shrieked, dipping as I put my weight on it, causing my heart to lung in my chest. Just when I was sure it would crash to the floor it stopped and held me steadily. Taking one last look into the room, I grabbed my flashlight and ducked down into the hole. Using my shoulder and back, I shoved just barely up on the cover and slid it over some. Then I hooked one arm around the ladder and reached up with the other, grunting as I pulled it a little more. After one last budge on it, it slid down into its resting spot with a dulled clink, sealing me down in the tunnels with the smell of long forgotten waste, mold, and fear. My own fear.

I stayed on that ladder breathing deeply for a few moments, before I could work up the courage to climb further down into the hole. Using the flashlight, I stopped every few minutes to look around and listen. I could hear vague sounds of dripping, water plopping as it was struck by drips that had given up and let go.

After only ten feet or so, the hole joined up with the rest of the sewer. Shining my light around its edges, I could see that it was mostly a circle, with the bottom flat. It must have been about fifteen feet across, and the same for height.

People had stopped using these sewers more than two hundred years ago. Newer improved sewers, using suction and pressure, had been installed closer to the surface. They were remarkably smaller, and more efficient. No breaks, leaks, or backups. The material to build them had of course been plastic with metal infused into it, making it virtually impervious. It had been cheaper to leave the sewers in place and just not use them, rather than to try and uproot the whole spider’s-web-like system that was splayed out beneath the cities.

As I at last set foot on the rough concrete at the bottom of the ladder, I saw a cloth back sack hanging on the wall from a really rusted piece of metal sticking through the broken concrete. Taking it down, I opened the top flap and peered inside. There were about a half dozen rations and about the same in water, and a piece of paper folded up inside. Taking the paper out, I donned that back sack with my own, unfolding the paper and shining the light on it.

Just as I was beginning to really look at the paper, I heard scrapping and scattering of little feet, mild squeaking reverberating off the walls and warbling on the water. Turning the light this way and that, I couldn’t tell where the noises had come from. There were many adjoining tunnel entrances off this tunnel, which stretched further than the mild light could penetrate. Breathing quickly, I returned to looking at the map. I needed to get out of here as fast as I possibly could.

Studying it, I saw that this particular tunnel ran north to south, to either end of the town. At the northern end, a couple tunnels branched off, trailing through a few series of turns and branches. One of them in particular stretched a good deal to the north and east. Someone had traced a line alongside that route, most probably my dad.

Holding the map in one hand, and the light in the other, I followed the small shelf I was on. It seemed to take ages before I reached the other end, maybe a couple hours in reality.

Once there, I stopped and looked around. There didn’t seem to be any way across the black sludge that sat thickly in the bottom of the sewer. The ledge cornered and followed the tunnel that led to the left. Looking around, I tried to find something to improvise, but the odds and ends that were scattered in branching tunnels and along the ledge didn’t offer up anything useful.

The assortment of things down here was odd. A few stuffed animals or dolls, a really old and bent shopping cart, a garden rake, tools, toys, old wrappers with barely discernible words in their faded to off-white surfaces, and weirdest of all, an entire couch, laid up against the wall in one of the branching tunnels, nearly blocking the route altogether.

I thought about returning and grabbing the couch, but then I didn’t think it would reach. The ledges were each three feet wide, which meant the span in the middle had to be about nine feet across, and I didn’t think that the couch was that long. And so I stood in a moment of indecision.

The sound of footfalls made me whirl around so fast and jump so hard I almost lost grip of the map. Shining the light down the way I had come, I was scared motionless by the sight of a human-shaped figure just barely indiscernible at the very limits of the light’s reach.

“Who- Who are you, and what do you want?” The figure didn’t answer. I backed up a step and my foot scraped on the edge, forcing me to step towards the man a little to keep from falling. Glancing down at the black substance that I did not honestly wish to know what was, I returned my gaze to where the man was standing.

Licking my lips, I shuffled my feet a little. “Ah, listen. I don’t mean to intrude, honestly. I just was trying to flee from imminent death, so I ducked in here to get away.” A laugh issued from the man, dry and crackled as if from disuse. I hesitated, peering once more down into the depths. Maybe crossing that would be preferable to dealing with the man before me.

“Hey, is there any way to cross that- stuff without getting in it?” The man was silent for a time, but then he raised his hand and pointed off to the left. Brows furrowed, I glanced that way and then shook my head. “No, see, I need to go the other way. That way.” I pointed to the east. The man grunted gratingly and again motioned to the west, rather emphatically. Turning barely, I pointed the light down the length of the path that was currently to my right. As the beam swept across the tunnel, I saw a bridge just barely twenty feet away. Turning the light back toward the man I started to thank him, but he wasn’t there. Taking a few steps down that way, the light still didn’t reveal him.

Slowly, I turned away and followed the tunnel to where it met with the bridge. It was only about a foot wide, but it reached the other side. Cautiously, I put a foot on it and shoved a little. It shifted and a small amount of concrete fell away to land on the sludge. I wrinkled my nose that it was so thick it didn’t even swallow the bits of rock and sand, but let them slowly settle in like quicksand.

Taking a few deep breaths, I bounced on my feet a little, tucking the map into a pocket so it wouldn’t get dropped if I lost my balance. Finally, I hefted myself backward, and then lunged forward.

As I crossed the small bridge, the whole thing shifted and swayed a little, threatening with each hasty footfall to collapse and bring me with it. As I reached the other side, I allowed my weight to carry me straight into the opposite wall, catching myself with my hands against the rough concrete. It was so slick that the ridges and pocks in it were the only things that kept me from sliding along it and crashing onto the floor.

Standing against the wall for a moment I forced my breathing to settle back to something resembling regularity, trying to ignore the almost overwhelming smell of the place. At last, I once again pulled out my map and followed the tunnel back to the East. I had no more troubles, or scares, other than a few rat-like animals that scurried out of the way.

A few hours later, I reached the end of the series of tunnels. Here, as there had been about every fifty feet along these dark trails, there was a ladder that led up and through another whole. Pocketing the map, I began climbing the ladder, the light swinging wildly every time I reached that hand for the next rung. Just before I passed the edge where I would no longer be able to see the sewer, I felt eyes on my back. Turning slowly, I brought the light around to see. At the very edges of the beam the vague outline of a person barely revealed itself. I presumed it might be the same man I had seen before. He made no noise, but he didn’t come any closer either. At last, he raised one hand in a vague wave. I hesitated, then waved back. After lowering his arm, he didn’t move. I guessed maybe he was just making sure I really did leave and I didn’t intend to invade his territory indefinitely. I started to continue my upward journey, but then paused. Pulling off the back sack, I reached in and pulled out a couple of ration packages and water pouches. Carefully, I let them drop the short distance to the ground, glancing at the man as I did so. He didn’t register recognition, but nor was there confusion. With another wave, I finished my climb. At the top, there was another round lid, which was just as heavy as the other one, though not quite as wide. It was only probably two feet across. Rising as high on the ladder as I could, I used my back to lift the lid, then moved sideways to slide it away. Dirt fell from the cement and metal around the edge of the round exit from this dark forgotten network below the barren and ruined land.

Peering up through the opening, I was somewhat surprised to see it was growing dark outside. This particular opening stood beneath the open sky, allowing a fresh breeze to waft away the smell of rot that cloyed and drifted from below. I stopped to listen for a moment, and then lifted my head up the smallest bit. Looking around, I saw that this cover stood in the middle of nowhere. Or at least, that was what I thought. Turning though, I saw that there were buildings behind me. So I was on the edge of town. If I wasn’t careful, I’d be seen.

Thankfully the land around me lay in deep shadows, as the waning light allowed the dark of night to once more envelope the world in a seeping embrace. Casting a look in all directions, I turned my flashlight off, and lifted full out of the ground. Careful not to allow any but the barest noises, I slid the heavy covering back over the hole, feeling a sense of relief sweep through me and wash away the horrible feelings that the dark and forgotten land below had permeated within me.

Still shuddering slightly, I turned once more to see where exactly I was. There was a small stand of dead trees and thick brush between me and the nearest of the buildings, hiding further from sight what the night could not conceal. Just near me was a dim outline just barely visible in the gloom, where another building had once stood. So this particular end was not useless, it had served another building, and possibly a few more which time had completely erased.

Out in the barrens, the land stretched for miles before reaching the wall of rocks far to the north. I knew that was the way I had to go. I could easily reach home by tomorrow evening if there were no more troubles. Just in case I was followed however, I didn’t want to go straight home.

I decided I would swoop far out to the east, then go home by way of traveling north. Much along the same route we had taken to get there in the first place, years ago. I swallowed thickly. It had really been so long. We had left home a little over five years ago.

Shrugging it off, I tossed my back sack into place and stretched full upright, beginning the long walk home across the drifting, settling, inconsistent land that would bring me home: where my heart was.

Now

With a sigh, I turned around in my seat to glance at Alec. He sat on his bed, looking at a small rectangle of thick paper in his hand. I couldn’t see what was on it, but I could vaguely make out that it must be a picture. His eyes were lost somewhere far away and his brows faintly betrayed sadness. I tilted my head, trying to figure out what he was seeing, but the motion caught him up out of his reverie.

Shaking his head as he glanced at me, he quickly stuffed the item into a pocket in his shirt. I was held by a feeling that this was familiar to me, as if I’d seen this before. I tried to wrack my memory as Alec straightened himself up and glanced at me again.

And then I had it. He had done the same thing when we had been staying in Chicago, what seemed like a lifetime ago. The same paper, the same hasty stuffing it away when he saw that I’d noticed… I gave him a small half smile. “What was that?” He shrugged. “Nothing. Something my mother gave me, a long time ago.” I felt a slight pang in my heart. “Your mother? You never really talk about her. Whatever became of her?” He looked away, out the window over my shoulder. “Oh, she passed on.” My heart fell. “Oh. I am sorry, dear boy. What happened?” He waved a hand almost dismissively. “It was a long time ago. About eight years ago. She got really sick, lost consciousness, and then never woke up. She passed about two months after she got sick.” I nodded, unsure what to say.

After a moment of gazing at something far beyond what the view out the window could have afforded, he shook himself and laughed slightly, mirthlessly. “Oh well, I suppose that the noon meal will be ready about now.” Rising, Alec strode to the door. The look of lightness didn’t quite reach his eyes, which were brooding. Turning at the door, he waved a hand toward the hallway. “Going to join me?” I shook my head. “No, I believe I will stay and write a little longer. I’m doing well right now.” He shrugged and told me to suit myself, then left, with the door-hanging swaying at his departure.

With a deep sigh I turned back toward my papers. The words on them were a little blurred looking as I gazed at them. I rubbed my eyes well and looked again. As my vision cleared of the brown haze that rubbing them had instigated, the words cleared and once more stood out crisply.

We had been here in Anchorville for two months now, watching the snow pile up more and more. Almost every morning the snow had to be shoveled out of the paths, and sometimes icicles had to be knocked down. These people were incredibly conservative though. They didn’t just bash the thick hangings of ice; they collected them, melted them, boiled them, and strained them, to make drinking water.

Alec had pitched in a helping hand with a lot of the projects that arose, such as the shoveling, and any repairs made necessary. He said it was his way of paying for our stay, and the food we were provided with. Very rarely did we have to eat ration packages. The other night we did because the snowfall had been so great that we were not able to journey out for a congregated meal.

I had investigated the town thoroughly and was pleased at the amount of work that they had figured out. They had stored enough food throughout the summer, to last through the winter. Even accounting for little mouths that would be coming about to weaning during the winter months.

Wood had been stockpiled laboriously, until there was more than enough to last a normal winter, and scrape a hard one as this one appeared to be determined to reach. Each of the rooms and buildings that were expected to be in use during the winter months had been fitted with fireplaces and chimneys to vent the smoke. Even our own room had been remodeled with such, though the building itself only housed eight other families, and two of those roomed together to lower the necessary amount of heating.

Thick curtains had been hung at the doorway, over the window, and down the middle of the room between the two beds but cut short four feet from the end of the room. This curtain had been drawn back for the day, to make the room seem larger, but at night could be closed for marginal privacy.

About once a week the city had a huge get together, where there were a couple hundred people present. They ate, talked, and danced. They had gathered up some old instruments, and learned to play them. A guitar, a piano, a violin, and one I couldn’t identify which resembled a guitar, but was white, round, and had a longer neck than body. And it only had five strings. They also had overturned some buckets, and used those for drums.

I glanced out the window. The glass was steamy from the fight between heat within and cold outside, but I could still see the world outside. Through the buildings around us, we could see trees in the distance, and mountains beyond that. They were white with snow, but streaks and patches of black and deep green starkly graced them.

Resting my pen once more upon the papers, I sought to return to my writing. I couldn’t make my suddenly fuzzy mind think though. Setting the pen down, I pulled over a few of my notes from around that time. I hadn’t had to rely on my notes very often, but every once in a while my mind would blank and I would once again scan the tidbits of my past for clues on what had occurred next. A lot of it flowed through my mind like pure water as I wrote; leaving streams of black markings across the page that I hoped could adequately sum up the experiences and events of my life. And then the dam would be blocked and I would have to rely on my hastily scrawled sentences to return me to my memories.

As I read a few of the notes from way back then, I smiled. It had been so hot that year. So very hot. Remembering that sweltering, overwhelming heat, I smiled now. Being so very cold outside at the moment, thinking on that heat was something of a reprieve.

Once again setting pen to paper, I watched as the flowing and scratching tip left trails of black ink on all that yellow. It really was something of a marvel that by marking and discoloring this yellowed paper, people I never met would be able to learn about my life.

Then

I had walked all through the night, and as the sun began its steady climb high into the sky, I kept a good watch at the land around me. There wasn’t anywhere for anyone to hide across the flat and empty dessert. I had gone far enough to the east that I didn’t pass through the rocks that separated the north from the south.

I reached the edge of the long dry lake bed around mid-morning, smiling at the noticeable change between the deep dust, and the hard and cracked earth that surrounded my home. It had been quite a while since I had been here, and stepping once more upon this ground filled me with a sense of relief so deep it was better than that first shower I had taken when we moved into the fallout shelter.

Making a day of it, I took a somewhat wandering course along the route that led to my home. I felt I had long since left any potential follower far behind, but in case they were good at tracking, I wanted them to get as lost as possible amongst the varied pillars of rock and hard dried mud that had once lain under thousands of tons of water.

And, as the sun once more prepared to leave the world in darkened slumber, that great island in the middle of the land came into view. It looked the same as I had left it, which gave me hope. It hadn’t been destroyed at any rate.

By the time I reached the base of the grandest of hiding places, the sun had said goodnight and disappeared. The world lay in darkness, as the moon remained hidden behind clouds that had rolled in with the departure of the burning sphere in the sky. I could tell however that all of the boats that had rested so long on dry ground had been burned to cinders, very few boards even bothering to retain shape.

Looking around, I figured that the front door was not the best way to enter, just in case something more sinister than the apparent calm waited within. Creeping along the base of the island, I reached the side entrance within a half hour.

The rock was still in place, seeming rooted into the ground beyond mobility. Yanking on the smaller rock, I was relieved when the rock eased outward, revealing the entrance below. Giving the world around me a last look, I ducked into the fallout shelter, allowing the door to close behind me.

I stood in the brief darkness before the lights came on with breath held in anticipation. The lights however revealed only the long hallways stretching into the island. Cautiously, I followed the corridors and halls, turns and spacious levels, till I reached the area that we had taken as our living space.

I stood tentatively in front of the main door that led into the wing where we had lived, unsure if I honestly wanted to enter and find out what I had worked so hard to see.

And then the choice and the matter were both resolved. The main door swung wide, and my sister rushed through it to throw her arms around me before I could even utter the shriek of terror that came to mind. Her embrace threatened to deny my breathing, but I didn’t argue as I hugged her back. A thousand words of joy and curiosity passed through my head but never crossed my lips, as the silence from the hall beyond fell like deafening noise upon my ears.

“Where’s father?” She pulled back and looked at the floor. “He’s sick” she said. “He has been for about a week now. He’s in his bed.” A stab of fear raced through me as I ran the short distance down the hall to the room my father had claimed as his. Entering the room, I saw my father lying on his bed, a thick blanket wrapped tightly around him. His eyes were closed, and his breathing labored.

Sitting gently on the edge of his bed, I reached out gently and stroked his forehead. He was highly fevered, his head running with sweat. Drawing back, I swallowed back tears. He looked so frail laying there in the thralls of sickness, his whole body shivering even as the fever and the blanket radiated such heat. To have come so far, only to find him so sick, it was disheartening. I covered my face with my hands. He had to be alright. He just had to.

I spent the next few days watching and waiting, wiping him down with cool rags and trying to force some liquids down his throat. And finally, the fever passed. He woke about a week after I had been home. At first he didn’t seem to believe that I was truly home, but finally a great joy filled him and he threw his arms around my neck in a bear of a hug, tears trailing down his thin and pale cheeks.

I spent a while telling them everything about what had happened when I was taken away, as my father recovered. And then for a time, things went back to the way they were. We were much more cautious though. We never went anywhere. We didn’t honestly need to. We had everything we needed.

There were less people passing now, only two or three groups a year, and never the raiders. Time passed like river currents. Days blended together in a steady stream of words devoured and food eaten. We used the gym more enthusiastically now though, working ourselves into shape, and beyond. Strengthening our nerves, reflexes, and minds with each passing week, and month.

I began to realize though that my father was slowing down. His body didn’t move as fast as once it had, and his mind was not as sharp. He couldn’t always remember what he was doing, or why. And then the day came when it hit me in the face that our father was no longer capable of caring for himself, and that Tara and I would have to be more watchful.

I was eating breakfast in the main meal hall, when Tara came in at a fast jog. “Hey,” she said. She tried to be passive about it, but I could hear a note of worry in her voice that pricked my attention. “Do you know where father is?” I shook my head, thinking. He had been going to take a shower. But that had actually been a couple hours ago. “No, I don’t know where he’s gone.” I set aside my book and rose. “I’ll help you find him. He was going to take a shower, so he was down by that end of the shelter last I knew.” She nodded.

We hurried along the metal and cement tunnels until we reached the shower area of the complex, entering to an empty room and vacant stalls. There were no clothes in sight, and none of the showers were wet. He had never come here.

In growing unease, we turned and began searching the halls together, trying to find our father. It was like looking for an ant in a hill though. None of the lights were on as we traveled through the halls, and none of the doors had been left open. Wherever he went, he had covered his trail well.

And then, as we were passing a hall, I stopped short as I saw daylight streaming in through an open door. It led to the outside. I had never known that this particular hall led to the outside before. I grabbed Tara’s hand and pulled her around to see. Together, we approached the open door, and peered out.

It was no wonder we hadn’t used this exit before. The door opened onto a very small ledge, before dropping off sharply to the ground far below.

Our father was sitting on the edge of the ledge, feet dangling over. As we came up behind him, he turned to look at us and his weight made the dirt at the edge shift and trickle down the side of the island. He gave a smile and shook his head. “You know, I was going to take a shower, but then I remembered; home is a long ways away, and even if I got there, the power company’s turned off the shower so there won’t be one anyway.” Turning back to the view, he began gently swinging his feet. “Your mother will certainly be disappointed when she comes back.” The unexpected mention of my mother hit me with a pang of hurt.

“Uh, father?” Tara began. I elbowed her in the ribs to stop her from saying it. “There’s a shower here, you can use it,” I said instead. He raised his head and gazed out across the land. “Yeah, but the people who are renting this to us wouldn’t probably like it. They might charge extra for the shower you know. They used to do that when people would steal towels. They would take your card number, and they’d charge you for missing things, and sometimes for found things, just to squeeze a few pennies out of a guy…” I didn’t know what he was talking about. Hotels hadn’t been used since before the war, and he hadn’t been around then.

I shook my head. “But father, you already paid for a shower, so you might as well take one.” He shook his head and waved me away. “You take it for me then, boy. I can’t afford a shower for everybody, so you kids might as well take one. Best to have you kids clean.” My eyebrows scrunched up.

A moment later, he turned his head and looked at me, confusion on his face. “You know, I never knew this ledge was here before. I’m not even sure how I found it in the first place. I must have been sleepwalking. It’s a good thing you just woke me up, or I might have walked right over the edge.” With that, he stood and walked back to the door. As he passed, he placed a hand on my chest. “Now you guys don’t be playing around this area, or you might accidentally fall off. Your mother would turn in her grave if she knew I’d let you guys out here. So don’t you go telling her.”

I stared after him as he went back into the fallout shelter. Glancing at Tara, I followed him inside and shut the door behind us. In the light from the hallway, I watched him disappear into the depths of the huge complex. I motioned for Tara to follow him, then turned back to the door. Pinching my chin in thought, I stared at the problem exit. I had to find a way to bar my father from leaving through this door. If he happened to believe he was on ground level, he might walk right off the edge.

At last, I decided the only way to keep him from going out that door would be to permanently block this entire hall. There were only sleeping quarters down here anyway, so we wouldn’t miss anything. Returning to the door that led into this hall, I pulled the huge doors shut. With a little maneuvering, I managed to position the latch lock on the other side so that closing the doors would cause the latch to fall into the catch on the other side of the door, locking it from the other side. Once the lock fell into place, there was no way to open the door from this side, without some sort of heavy explosive.

Satisfied with my work, I turned and coursed the hallways till I returned to the main meal area. Father and Tara were both there, father eating and her encouraging him to do so. She was telling him that he should eat now, rather than on the journey, so as not to have to stop along the way. She glanced at me and frowned. I returned it.

A few days after that, he showered in his clothes, then asked how long it had been raining when he returned to the dining area. And after that, he misplaced his shirt, couldn’t find it, and refused to wear another. The errant shirt was found two hours later in the garbage disposal.

Over the course of the next couple months he started a fire in the middle of his room for warmth, then turned the AC on cause he was hot; ate toothpaste thinking it was the newest version of the ration package; then he waited for a full day at the front entrance for mother to come home, then threw a tantrum cause we made him go to bed when she was obviously out there somewhere in trouble. He never remembered these episodes the next day. Most of the time he seemed fine. Normal conversation, and normal routine. When he lost it for a bit, it was always unexpected, and meant a brief moment of fear as we tried to sort out his current dilemma.

And then it ended. I’ll never know whether it was an accident, or intentional. I like to believe that it would have had to be an accident, but he was just so far gone, that when it came around to the normal days, he spent them agonizing over how much grief he gave us.

We woke to find him missing, and spent hours and hours searching for him within the complex, before we ever thought to look outside. I’m glad that I found him, and not Tara. She would have been devastated, possibly traumatized forever. Mother was bad enough, but this was almost worse because he’d done it himself. As far as I can figure, he had gone to the top of the island, and walked out onto one of the half rotted pieces of dock that still clung to the shore like a peeled scab. And somehow, whether the rotted boards had given way and betrayed his trust, of if he had decided to go for a swim in the lake that had long since parted from here, he had ended up at the bottom of the lake bed. I won’t describe him, because we all know what falls from great heights can do to a normal body, let alone an old and already frail one.

I went back inside and gently told my sister that he was gone. I made her stay inside until I had buried him, then we both stood silently over his grave. For a long time we just stared at that mound of earth. I felt empty inside. My mentor, my friend, advisor, confident, and most of all, my father, was gone from this world. Somehow, it seemed bleaker and more pointless then ever it had in these past years. At this point, I was twenty-six. Eleven years had passed since the end of the world. And mankind scraped by. We weren’t living, we were surviving. Eating, breathing, washing, drinking… Existing. But not actually living. What was the point in existing, if there was nothing worth being here for?

We had spent years hiding away from this forsaken, barren land. We hadn’t left since that day long ago when I returned from being captured, so we knew nothing of the world. People hadn’t passed by in more than a year. I wasn’t even sure there were any people left to pass us by.

Turning to Tara I could see in her eyes that she felt the same way. And then I remembered. In a distant memory, I remembered. Waterville. That city we had visited so long ago, on our trek here. Those people had been living. Not just scraping and surviving, living. I licked my lips and swallowed.

“We need to leave here,” I said quietly. She glanced up at me, but then shook her head as she looked down again. “Why? Everything we’ve ever known is here. Father is here.” I shook my head, putting my hand on her shoulder. “We need to go. Father wouldn’t want our survival to be restricted to the barest definition of the term.” Again she shook her head. “But where is there to go? What is there to do?”

I pulled her gently toward the shelter. “Come, let us pack. I can tell you on the way. But we should go.” She resisted, drawing toward the mound of disturbed earth. “But why? Why should we go anywhere or do anything? If we die because we left this safety that he provided for us, then we are slapping father in the face.” Pulling her around to face me, I got her attention fully. “Listen. Father would be offended if he saved our lives and ensured our survival, only to have us rot away here with nothing to show for it.”

She stared at me for a full minute, before slowly nodding. Her eyes darted as she thought about it. “Yes. You’re right. We should go. We should get out there and do something. Too long have we sat by and done nothing.”

Our minds made up, and in full agreement, we returned to the fallout shelter to pack our things and plot our course.

Now

Setting my pen down, I put my face in my hands. My heart hurt. Thinking of my father and how far he had been gone before he died, made me sad still. To think that he had gotten us so far, and had been so intelligent, and then had lost his mind in the end, it felt like an injustice.

And of course, thinking about the fact that everyone I even knew or loved was gone, that hurt too. But you don’t get to be as old as I was without losing a lot of people. The more people you love or know, the more people you run the risk of losing. I had learned that the hard way in my long journey.

I heard footsteps outside the doorway and quickly stood up. Turning to face the door, I wasn’t at all surprised to see Derek, the grandson of Mitchell. He strode in and went over to the edge of Alec’s bed. The younger man had fallen ill the day before, now sleeping soundly as his stuffed nose caused him to snore slightly. He ran no fever though, so I wasn’t too worried. Derek gave me a sympathetic smile as he turned away from the bed. “I’m sure he’ll be alright. He’s young and strong.” I smiled. “You are not so very old yourself.”

With a nod he walked to the window. “Yeah,” he laughed softly. “Not nearly next to you, old timer.” He patted me on the back. “Ah, but the winter is almost past. The spring months are closing in, and before you know it, the flowers will be in bloom, and the birds will fill the air with song and laughter.” I nodded. He was right. We had been here in this city almost six months now, and spring was merely a few weeks away. Already the ground was staring to peep out in places amongst the snow, brown and bare from the winter’s passing.

Sometimes a warm wind blew through from the southwest, filling me with a sense of hope. It seemed I’d make it through the winter after all. I had been sick myself twice this winter, causing both me and Alec some worry, but both times I had pulled out fine. They had lasted longer for me than most people, my body not so easily able to fight it as once it had been.

And now, with spring around the corner, we could think about continuing our journey. But we couldn’t leave until after the spring had come, because there was something else I wanted Alec to see. He had grown tired and bored of snow pretty quickly, though he hadn’t complained because he could remember the heat of summer.

Derek stayed and talked with me far into the night before retiring. I was pleased to have had his company for so long. He reminded me a lot of his grandfather, gentle and caring. The ‘dynasty’ that Mitchell had long ago spoken of had been turned around, into a thriving community. One where everyone took care of not only themselves and their own things, but everyone else as well. Mitchell would have been pleased at how things had turned out.

Then

After we had packed up all the things we wished to bring with us on our journey, we did what the Keep would have done and blocked off the main entrance with the burned remains of the ships. We tried to make it look like it had fallen off the island and shattered down the rocks. We even broke off the last remaining dock from the upper levels and let it drop, leaving by the entrance hidden by the rock slab. It took quite a while to finish hiding it, but we felt it was important to do.

Anyone who stumbled upon it was probably likely to fall into the same trap we did by cowering inside the mountain as opposed to getting out and living. Even though the world around us was a dangerous place, it was better to be around other people, improving the quality of life available to the next generations.

We stood for a time beside father’s grave, simply staring at the large rock and dried mud hobble that had been our haven, our hideout, our home. It was hard to just leave it all behind. Knowing full well that the food, water, and clothes we had left behind would just be sitting there, wasting away. And yet, it was something of a last hope I suppose. Assuming there were people left in the world. If things got bad enough with the raiding parties, then people would have a last place to go. I would make sure that people could find it, should I perish. But only if they had known me while alive. Sis would be able to find it, obviously. But I intended to make friends and spread the word, to an extent.

At long last, we said good-bye to the fallout shelter, turned our backs to it, and set out. I took Tara’s hand to help give her some emotional support as we walked away. Inside though, I felt maybe it was support for me as well. I never would have admitted it though.

Once we got out of the lake bed the going was a little tougher and we had to break hands to be sure we wouldn’t lose our balance. The ground was uneven, and the dust filled dirt sifted around the foot to allow up to four inches of it to pass through. Each step was like trying to walk on a room full of marbles. It never quite gave, but it kept us somewhat off-balance. It had been so long since we had traveled through this stuff that it took quite a while before we got our stability and timing down right.

As we traveled along, we passed dead trees and brush, some of which had given up the battle and lay defeated on the ground. A lot of them were mostly rotted out, distinguishable only by the long thick piles of woodchips and dust.

The second day into our journey, it rained. Heavy, thick rain. Each drop landed in the dust with a heavy ‘poof’, some of them causing small bursts of dust to scatter around it. We could only stand and stare up at the rain landing on our faces for a while, before we ran for cover. It was sparse out here, but we did manage to find a place where a rock jutted out of the side of a tall ridge, creating something of a pocket. I let Tara stand in the back of it, and I took the front. My legs were still within range of the rain, and within moments my pants and shoes were soaked.

The world around us grew darker, gloomier, and still the rain fell. At long last, I figured the rain was here to stay, at least for the night. I told Tara to stay put and I began walking along the side of the cliff, looking for a place we could stay the night. There was nothing the first direction I went, but the other direction revealed a deep cave. Returning to my sister, I led her back to the cave. I had already been soaked from looking for shelter, but by the time we got there, she was nearly as wet as I was. Once we were inside the cave, we changed into dry clothes. We could do nothing for the shoes though, and so simply laid them out to dry as much as they could before the night was over. We had nothing to start a fire with, as anything outside would long be wet by now. And so we had no light. We had taken a few of the solar lights with us, but we didn’t want to waste them so we only used them to find places to lay out our rolled up sleeping mats, and to retreat to the rear of the cave to relieve ourselves. And still the pounding rain continued to fall.

In the morning when I woke, the rain was still falling with unrelenting power. I saw that Tara was already up. She had taken out a large plastic bag and was holding it out in the rain in a bowl shape to catch the water. It only took minutes to fill the bag, which was about a foot deep and half again as wide. When it was so full she couldn’t hold it out anymore, she brought it in and hung it on a large root that stuck upward out of the wall. She turned and saw that I was awake. Shrugging she gestured at the bag of water.

“It doesn’t taste like much; even the sky must be gritty. But it’s still better than that stuff in the pouches.” I glanced at it. “You didn’t drink it straight, did you?” She shook her head, ruffling my hair as she walked on to her own stuff. “Course not, silly. I learned better than that in all that time we had at the shelter.” She pulled out a thin piece of cloth. “I used this to filter it. We don’t have a fire so I can’t boil it, but there probably aren’t too many germs in the sky.”

We filtered the water she had just captured through the thin cloth and into another bag for keeping. For hours we sat and stared at the rain. It hadn’t rained at all in over a month, and any rain before then had never passed a simple drizzle. I had never seen rain such as this, in all my years. It was only twenty six of them, but you would think it might have rained this much at least once in that time.

Finally I grew bored of it and pulled out one of the books I had brought with me. I had brought along a handful of small books from the grand library, along with all my notes. I had been keeping notes every so often, about the important things. I figured at one point someone might want to read them. Or maybe, I might even write my own book, so people could see what life had been like at this time.

I smiled at the thought, but returned my attention to the book I held in my hand. It passed the time, and soon it was night once more. We had eaten some of our rations during the day, and had enough left to last a week. We had taken enough for the journey to Waterville, and in the case of an extra two days. So I hoped that the rain would stop tomorrow, or at least slow. Walking in a drizzle would be somewhat miserable, but we would do fine.

I needn’t have worried though. Bright sunlight woke me to a clear day. The sky was bluer than I had ever seen it and it actually seemed full of adventure. We packed with renewed excitement, eager to be going. We still had a small portion of water left from the rain in the bag, so I tied it to the bottom of my back sack and brought it with us. Outside, the earth was still damp. The ground was somewhat soggy looking, and mushy to step on. A deep earthy smell filled the lungs, yet it was tinged with the acrid taste of ash.

Still, the rain had been a sign in my opinion, that life would get better one day. That rain had washed away a lot of grit I was sure, and soon, new life would sprout across the land. A rain such as that had to have had positive effects.

We spent the next few days steadily on course for Waterville, only stopping occasionally to rest. For the most part the going was easy. But at one point we came across a huge gash in the earth. I stared at it in confusion. “I don’t remember that being there when we went by here before.” Tara nodded, then shook her head. “Me neither.” We shrugged. The gash was too wide to cross it, and I couldn’t see the bottom. Looking into the distance though, I could see that it ended a few hundred feet away. The other direction I could see no end. So we went around it. We gave it a wide berth when we circled around, in case the ground near the end was unstable.

About a week after we had left, we made it to Waterville. It looked close to the same as when we had left it. Empty; lifeless; and desolate. I alone knew that was a façade. As we stood looking at it from a distance, Tara gave me a look that said she wasn’t sure whether to believe me or not. Her eyes wondered if this had been such a good idea, to leave hearth and home for a place that seemed so empty.

I shrugged and walked onward. Let her follow me if she wanted to. And of course, as I was the only person she had left in this world, she came with me. There was nothing else left for her to do. As we walked through the barren streets, I began to wonder if maybe they had all disappeared for good. There were no sounds, and there was no movement. Anything that had once blown free was now plastered to the spot through time or rain, and it coated the place like scabs or dead skin.

We finally reached the solid row of buildings. It was definitely further out than I remembered. Their expansion plans must still be in full swing. As I came to the front door of one of the buildings, I heard something moving in the alley behind us. Turning, I saw a man scuttling toward us. He looked as bedraggled as any who might have suffered the full effects of the crash, but I knew that to be a lie. I sat on the steps and motioned for Tara to plant herself beside me.

The ragged man approached us, seeming on the verge of issuing a laugh to shame a hyena. He came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, eying us hungrily. I smiled pleasantly at him. “I see they’ve found a good actor for the part.” He looked at me and grinned, toothy. “The right man, for sure, you’d think.” He laughed and the craziness to it sent a shiver down the spine, even though I was sure he was only acting.

“And you know when the mob comes, they’ll tear you to pieces, they will. They will.” He nodded as if to himself. “Lots of pieces, can’t put the puzzle back together again… Not at all you know. It would be too wet and sticky.”

I shook my head. “So they went with a crazy routine, huh? That drive away more than the sane murderer look?” The man gave me a wry look. But I could see in his eyes that wheels were turning. He wondered if I really did know more about this place than the average stranger.

“Listen, I visited here, some time ago. About eleven years to be exact. I was brought in and fed, and science-types studied my cart.” The eyes brightened. “Ah. The friend of Reuben. Reuben’s friend.” I raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, Reuben, that was the man who brought be in, and showed me around. Listen, could we see him?” The man shook his head. “Not today, likely. Maybe tomorrow, or the day after that. But you’ll talk to the boatman about that.” I stared at him in utter confusion. (Boatman?)

Another man stepped out of the alley behind the first man and shook his head. “Knock it off, Albert. They said they knew Reuben. Come, let’s talk. We can’t go in there, but we can go to court.” I wrinkled my nose. “I never liked that courthouse. It’s something of a creepy place.” But I followed him anyway. The loony stepped back and let us pass, but his expression told me he still didn’t like us. Or at least he didn’t trust us.

The sane fellow led us through the streets to the courthouse where we had stood so long ago. As we entered, deep nostalgia filled me. To look at all the places my father had once stood, walked, lived… It was a little hard. I swallowed the lump in my throat and followed the taller man. I was on the tall side of average, so this man must truly be a giant to be taller than me. And yet, he wasn’t huge, just tall. A little bit thin really.

Instead of rising to the pompous chair of the judge, he sat with us in the wooden benches that filled the room. You would have thought that after centuries of inventions and improvement they would have gone with something a little more comfortable before the crash. But I suppose that maybe that was just how they had managed to scrape the money to turn this city into a hidden and forgotten utopia.

Once seated, he leaned against the bench in front of us and turned to talk with us. “So what brings you here?” I glanced at Tara. “Well, we ended up on our own, and now we’d like to stay. We want to live here.” The man raised both eyebrows in uncontained surprise.

“You- You want to live here?” He rearranged his arms, folded them, and unfolded them. “Um, Reuben did explain that to you, didn’t he? About outsiders?” I nodded.

“Yes, he did. He told me that people from the outside are too lazy and self-centered to be allowed to know about this place, let alone live here.” The other man nodded.

“Okay, so you understand why I can’t say yes, don’t you?” I sighed.

“Look, we aren’t looking for a place to leech. We’ve spent the last eleven years living in what we would call leisure. And we decided to leave it. We could have easily finished our days there, never to need or want again.” The eyebrows rose again. “But that isn’t living, that’s surviving. We want more than that. We want to be with other people, and do something. We want to be a positive influence, and do something to improve the world for the next generations.”

For a moment the man didn’t answer. Finally he nodded and refolded his arms. “Well, I’ll tell you what. We’ll put you up for the night in one of our guest houses. I’ll meet with the rest of the people tomorrow, and we will decide whether you can stay or not. The fact that Reuben knew you is a positive mark in your favor, his son or wife may be willing to vote in your favor, but there are many other people, whose voices will be heard as well. With the work we have to fill in the day, the decision may take a while.” I stopped him with a raised hand.

“Knew? Reuben ‘knew’ me? Is he- Is he alright?” The tall man stared at me, then lowered his head. “I’m sorry, I thought you might have known. He died. A couple years ago. He was on outside duty when a person passing through killed him. That was when we started sending them in teams of two. One to scare them, one to protect the outside-man.” I felt a small twinge of sadness. The man had been so nice too.

We allowed the tall man to lead us to a house, not far from the edge of what I knew was the real city. The land where trees grew, plants flourished, and people thrived. It was right there, within reach, yet just out of my grasp. I owed it to Tara to get us in there. I had dragged her out here to an unfamiliar land, in a cold and apparently empty town. But all we could do was to wait for our fates to be determined by a group of people who didn’t know us.

Now

With the spring came the rain. It poured unceasing for days at a time, and at one point for an entire week. My joints ached, and my body begged for sunshine and warmth. But I knew we couldn’t leave yet. The traders from the north would be here soon, and I really wanted Alec to see the wonders they brought with them. Some of these things had actually come from the ocean, quite a distance to the north.

They were supposed to come today, but they hadn’t yet appeared over the far hills. And so we sat and waited. The entire village had gathered in the great hall, and the main area had been cleared. There were long tables set along the edge of the clearing for some of the stuff to be put on, but the majority of the floor remained clear. I knew what would happen, I had been here once when the traders had come through. The festivities would go one for days, but we would leave first thing tomorrow, once the wares had been seen.

There was a hushed whisper passing through the crowds, all on the edges of their seats to see what goodies there were to be had. In return for protecting the rest of the country from attack or invasion along the southern border, all the towns along this edge were allotted a certain tribute. This tribute was decided upon once a year by the president, and the council of governors who were in charge of the respective cities. Each city was then given a share of that tribute. And the tribute was a certain value standard they had figured out, and that was lent toward receiving a share of the traders’ wares as they passed around. So that meant that out of this particular trade caravan, the city would be allotted a certain amount of goods before they had to pay for anything. Mostly they got things like blankets, bedding, or food items they couldn’t get here like fish or other animal meat. When I had seen a caravan pass through in a different town years ago, the city had bought some live pigs to keep for breeding and butchering. A replenish able meat source.

The whispering grew excited and I turned to see why. Over the tops of the hills, colorful flags could be seen waving from the tops of poles. Within seconds the caravan was in sight. And a half hour later, they were here. A hundred people riding horses or walking came into the clearing before the barn. In a smooth assembly of motion like pure water, they began unloading their wares and bringing them into the barn. They made it seem like a dance as they spread out large colorful cloths on the ground or across the tables. Once the cloth had all been laid out, they started laying out their wares. Polished silver and candlesticks, lamps converted to hold candles, dishes, jewelry boxes, necklaces rings and bracelets, birds in cages, beautiful blankets, sacks of grain, clothes of all kinds, shoes, rugs, pots, statues, pictures, hats, old electric gadgets, and so much more. It seemed the stream of objects would never end, but at last, all of the items had been laid out before the waiting people, and the distributers fell back to wait outside. I knew from past experience that the animals were outside, other than the birds.

The people formed a double line that passed before the available wares, and I pulled Alec along to join me. His eyes were wide as he stared at all the stuff. There was so much, and it was so nice. A lot of the rugs and blankets had been made by the traders’ families, though some of them were simply patch worked out of old blankets and rugs.

The metal, glass, and china objects had been rubbed until they shone, and the jewelry had been cleaned magnificently. There were some things in there that people alive today had no idea what they were for, and it was obvious in the current uses they found themselves performing. For instance, some coffee pots had been painted over and filled with flowers, while a microwave served time as a storage box, laid on its back and sporting clothing as a suggestion.

I explained to Alec what these things had been way back when, and he was amazed at the sorts of things we’d had. Some of the people near me heard me and laughed. They were sure I had no idea what I was talking about, or that I was pulling the younger man’s leg.

Once we had finished looking at the things inside, I took him out to see the animals. I felt much like a dad might have eons ago when fairs and circuses still existed, taking a son around to see the animals. I smiled at the thought.

When he saw the animals the traders had, he could only stand and stare. Horses and cattle grazed in the shoots of spring grass, while a few dogs chased each other playfully at the ends of their respective ropes. A few rabbits idly munched leaves in wooden framed crates. Goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, ducks, geese, and llamas sent up a multitude of noises in the somewhat chill air. There had still been animals when we passed through Waterville, but not nearly this many.

On wagons, there were sacks of meat that had been precooked and stored, where I showed him fish. There were also many more sacks of grain, and then there were buckets of dried foods. At least buckets were used for their intended purposes. I laughed a little at the thought.

Wagons had been built better here too. They had wheels with spokes, such as what I had seen in books, and they were set to be pulled by horses. Teams of four horses had been roped to each one. And it was the horses that truly drew Alec’s attention. He went up to one of them and began stroking it, looking at it closely. He was in love, I could tell.

He was delighted when I told him that we would be purchasing two horses and a small wagon for the duration of our journey in Canada. We would be heading west across the southern edge of Canada, until we reached Montana.

Alec mostly wondered how it was that Canada had animals while America did not. I told him about how Canada had had two zoos in operation when mitchell’s grandfather had bought all of it up. He had bought it away from their government, and turned the zoos into farms. That was how they had still had animals, even when the rest of the continent had to do without. There were still the zoos on islands, far out to sea, but until people began using boats, they were out of reach. This in a way was a good thing; that gave them quite a while to increase their populations.

The next morning when we left Anchorville to complete the Canadian portion of our trip, riding on the cart made us both proud, and contented. It was so nice not to have to walk the whole way. Watching the muscles of the large animals pulling our small cart behind them was almost hypnotizing.

Only a few miles beyond the woods that surrounded Anchorvillie, a vast field of flowers stretched far into the distance, rolling and waving, bursts of color which sought to humiliate a rainbow.

Then

We stayed in the small house in Waterville for almost a week, wondering every day if we would be turned out. I was starting to think that they were going to tell us to leave, when the tall man came to visit. His face didn’t tell a thing as he walked up the stairs. I thought for sure that he would have been happy if we were allowed in, so I knew what he was going to say.

I opened the door before he could knock, and swept my arm aside to invite him in. He shook his head and stayed on the steps. “Well, you better gather your things. It’s time for you to leave the house.” I hung my head a little. But then I nodded. Determined not to show my disappointment, I told Tara we were leaving. We gathered all our things up in our bags, and followed the man out into the street. He led us through the roads silently. I didn’t pay much attention to where we were going, and it surprised me when we ended up at the stairs to the apartment into the utopia. I was jolted out of my thoughts and stared at the door, then turned to look at the man. His face was still expressionless.

“Are we- You- I-?” I didn’t know what to say. He nodded. “Yep. You guys have been voted in. Under some conditions. First, you must build your own house. Second, you will be given jobs, and you must work them. They are daily jobs, so you will start out simple, till you are used to hard daily work.

“You will be given a share of food and water, equivalent to your effort, and within the guidelines our science-types have given us for daily intake recommendations. Nothing is free. If you want something, you will have to work for it. If someone helps you, you will be expected to help them. If you help them, they will help you back. Are these acceptable terms for you?” I looked at Tara and she nodded.

The tall man finally broke a smile. “Well then, let us enter your new home, and see what plot the people have given you.”

With a flourish, the man walked us up the stairs, through the long hall that led to the door into the large community within. When he opened the door, Tara gasped and put a hand to her mouth. Her breath caught and she couldn’t stop staring. The trees, flowers, growing vegetables, the lush green grass, the wonderful living animals… It was all better than I had remembered them to be.

Tara fell to her knees and ran her hands through the grass, marveling at it. I smiled softly. She turned to me with tears in her eyes. “If only father had come to know a place such as this.” I nodded. I felt guilty now that I hadn’t brought us here while he was still around. At the end though, to travel with him might have been even more dangerous. He might have wandered off and been brutally picked off by a band of raiders.

I looked around at the gathering of houses and other buildings, at the tall plants in the garden, and the animals in their pens. To know that we would be living here, in this wonderful city, it was like a dream come true. We would want and not have, need and have to work hard for it, sweat, do things for other people, and care whether or not others were alright. It would be living. Not surviving; living.

A Survivor’s Tale

Part Three

By: Rebecca Reynolds

Then

After having been allowed into the utopia that was Waterville, Tara and I spent almost two weeks erecting a livable building to call home. We planned it together, and did most of the actual building ourselves, though a few people of the town helped us out. We kept track of the help as closely as we could, so that we could repay their kindnesses later. Pieces were scavenged for our home from the wrecking crew as they demolished other buildings from their expansion efforts.

It wasn’t much, a simple three room building, but it would suffice. The larger room would be used for relaxing, cooking, and dining, while the other big room had two beds in it, with a large curtain divider. The final room served as a pantry. These people had brought their scrap-building to almost an art, and our house ended up looking pretty nice. Not nearly as good as society had reached before the war, but still better than most things people tried to live in these days.

I was given a job tending to animals to start with, hauling feed bags, shoveling out waste, and washing down the animals that needed it. It really was amazing that all of these things could be so easily hidden. Animals made their own respective amounts of noise, and then there was the smell of their waste; children were allowed to run and play, scream and yell; building and demolishing made noise; talking, walking, tools… Everything made a certain amount of noise and smell, and yet, to stand just on the other side of the buildings, you would never know that this small city was even here, let alone ever had been.

Tara had been set to work in the gardens, tending to the plants and their needs. Rain or shine, work was carried out. It was long and hard, and for the first while, I went to bed almost too tired to sleep, my hands blistered and red, my whole body sore and aching. Even Tara, whose load was lighter, went to bed exhausted. But it was enjoyable. I was filled with a peace that kept me running. I wasn’t hiding away in artificial lights, staring at words day in and day out until existence blurred.

Every day that we worked and strived here, we made someone else’s life a little easier; made things just a little better for the next generation. We were contributing to the survival of man-kind.

It didn’t take long for Tara, a natural beauty in her own way, to attract the attention of some of the young men who lived here. They begged for her attention, and sought her affections. I couldn’t help but feel protective of her, but I stood back and watched. Slowly, one of them won over the others, and her mind was set.

Within the year, she found herself married and joining him in his own house on the other side of the town. I felt a somewhat hollow abandonment, but I kept a smiling face as I bid her well. I wasn’t without my own share of pursuers; various women had made clear their attraction.

I was moved to the demolition crew shortly thereafter, where I was put to work pounding down walls all day long. It took me a while, but soon I fell into line with all the others, allowing us to form one continuous stream of work, movement, and in general, progress. It was somewhat stress relieving to spend the days destroying things.

I watched too as the son of Reuben grew. He had been ten when we moved in, and he grew handsomely. His mother hadn’t remarried after the death of his father, and they had fallen somewhat in their standing, simply because their own income was diminished severely. Now though, he was old enough to help in the fields, hauling water and lunches to the workers. The children were given simple tasks, to aid their parents with the income.

And then I met her. Karen. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever laid eyes on. She had thick black hair, bright blue eyes, and the cutest little nose. She was kind of on the short side, but even that seemed adorable to me. She worked as a teacher, in the assembly hall. She taught children who were eight their numbers and letters, and some basics about animal and plant care. Most didn’t consider her a worthy catch, as she didn’t do a lot of physical labor, but I loved her for the knowledge and willingness to teach others necessary skills to survive.

She didn’t seem to even notice me as I began trying to get her attention. I made a point of walking past the assembly hall to and from work, which often put me out of the way. It was the best parts of my day. I woke with anticipation to see her, and I walked home with a light heart knowing I could again lay eyes on her before I went to bed. I caught myself smiling sometimes on the job, thinking about her cute face, and the way her eyes sparkled in the afternoon sun. It wasn’t long before some of the guys I worked with learned of my crush, and started poking fun at me about it.

Until her brother heard I liked her. He approached me when I was on the way home and told me to stay away from her. Their parents were trying to present her to the son of one of the leaders of the town, as a valuable catch. They wanted her to be set for life, in a comfy position. The people on top worked too, but it was definitely easier work.

I wanted her for myself, but I also understood how much better it would be if she were allowed to live a somewhat easier life. I couldn’t stop from watching her, but I kept my distance as her parents tried their little ploy. She deserved at least that much.

Also by Rebecca Reynolds:

A Survivor’s Tale, Part One

A Survivor’s Tale, Part Three

Coming Soon

A Survivor’s Tale, Part Four

Table of Contents

A Survivor’s Tale Part Two

A Survivor’s Tale Part Three

Other books by the Author