Chapter 03: Strangers, both Present and Absent
“Radio Scott here again with some exciting news, for us at least. We’ve found other survivors. But so far it’s been a mixed blessing.
We managed to rescue a young girl whose family died. Unable to dispose of their bodies on her own, she did the sensible thing and abandoned her home, finding a safer refuge. When we met her she was sensibly cautious about us, but decided she was safer with us than she was on her own. However, we also encountered someone else with a different opinion of the world. He wanted nothing whatsoever to do with us. Not even enough to listen to what we had to say. When we attempted to communicate with him, he shot at us. We ended up leaving him a short message and some food as enticement to read it with an open mind, but we don’t know whether that approach worked or not.
That said, you need to be cautious about approaching people. It seems that many people are more concerned with the threat of disease than they are with the challenges of surviving what’s approaching. There’s no sense getting yourself killed, so if anyone doesn’t approach you, do not approach them unless you’re sure they’ll respond to you positively. We need survivors, and you can’t do that if you’re getting yourself killed by other survivors.
However, that brings up another topic. Although we don’t have any references here, I did a quick calculation. Without knowing the exact population of our county, which includes four separate towns, I assumed twenty thousand, probably on the low side. Out of that, there are only four survivors. That means only a two hundredth of a single percentage survival rate! Such a number is unbelievably low. If we assume a world population of some six billion people, that would mean that only one million and two hundred thousand are alive today. Out of a population of three hundred million, that would only leave sixty thousand alive in the entire United States. Those are some sobering statistics, but it illustrates what we’re facing. The world has changed, people, and you’ve got to be prepared for what that implies.
Again, that means that we can’t continue to fight among ourselves. If you want to be left alone, don’t try to kill those that only want to communicate with you. If you need something, grab what’s available rather than trying to steal it from other survivors. Each additional death means the odds of your surviving goes down. We need a certain genetic diversity to survive as a species, and with so few people remaining, it’s going to be hard to achieve. If the Great Death didn’t kill us, then the other home grown diseases just might. We need enough survivors that we can endure whatever else we’re faced with. And don’t assume that the diseases we’ve encountered are the end of the threat to us. If we faced this many separate diseases after these microbes adjusted to our environment in only a few weeks’ time, then surely they’ll continue to adapt, and more diseases of different types will continue to develop over time. Thus it’s important to remain vigilant. Let’s help each other survive. If there are people near you, even if they don’t want to associate with you, you’ll need to help each other. Figure out how to trade services and resources.
If you have a garden, trade for gasoline. If you have gas, then trade for electricity. It’s only by cooperating that we’ll survive this, folks. The odds are stacked heavily against us, and we can only continue if we use our numbers to our advantage!”
The next morning Mattie found both Alice and her father quite energized and ready to begin the new day.
“I don’t know how you do it,” she whispered to Alice as she prepared toast and Alice was pouring juice. “Frankly, I’m still exhausted. I could hardly sleep. Every time I close my eyes I have visions of the dead. I bolt awake in the middle of the night, shaking and terrified. Yet here the two of you are, looking fresh as daisies. How the hell do you do it?”
Mattie wasn’t just fishing for information about whether Alice and her father were having sex. She still assumed they weren’t, even though she wasn’t sure about it. But still, despite being so young, she realized getting your rocks off only relaxed you for so long. If there was some trick to shutting out the nightmares, she wanted to know what it was, because she not only wasn’t sleeping soundly, she was also scared of closing her eyes at night.
“Actually, I’ve learned from my father. We work hard during the day, not giving us enough time to think of anything else. That way, when night comes, we’re both too exhausted to think about anything else.”
Mattie looked at her skeptically, the knife buttering the bread completely forgotten in her hand.
“I can’t believe that’s enough. It’s one thing to not focus on something, but my problem isn’t that I don’t think about it, it’s that the visions come to me on their own. I can’t escape them. They seek me out and grab me in the middle of the night. I just can’t shut them down.”
“It sounds like you’re having PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It’s what happens when your brain can’t handle what you’ve been through. You should really talk to Dad. He may know more about it than I do. Since I haven’t had it, it’s hard for me to suggest how to deal with it.”
“But how could you have avoided it?” Mattie asked, ignoring breakfast and turning to face her new friend. “I mean, all your friends have died. True, you still have your father, but you lost your mother, actually watching her get killed in front of you, and you’ve watched the entire would fall apart around you. Why the hell aren’t you terrified?”
Alice had to stop and think about it for a bit. It was a simple enough question, and one she’d actually asked herself more than a few times as survivor’s guilt had assaulted her several times.
“I don’t really know, but I’m fairly relaxed with where we are. Sure, I’m sad that everyone died, but I feel safe, I feel secure, I know that my Dad knows what to do, and with your help we can prepare for the future. It’ll be tough, but we’ll pull through.”
“OK, that makes sense. I feel safer knowing we have power and you can help protect me from marauders, but again, it’s not the same thing. How do you avoid the dreams? the fear? the doubts? the regrets?”
Alice took a moment to think of her response. She glanced at her father, seeing he was busy preparing some canned Spam.
“Actually, I think it’s the result of what Dad and I experienced,” she admitted. “It developed an incredible level of trust, and that trust produces its own peace. We decided that as long as we have each other, that we can put aside everything else and just concentrate on each other. Plus, as I said, we drive out distractions through hard work, but our focus on each other seems to keep the fears at bay as well.”
“Well, I’ll tell you, if you figure out how you did that, tell me, because I could stand to sleep peacefully for once. I haven’t been able to sleep the night through since this whole thing started, and it’s only gotten worse with each additional death.”
“Frankly, I had the same reaction, but not as bad. Whenever I got scared, I had my friends and family around me to support me.”
“And after they were gone?” Mattie asked, driving the point home.
“Then I had my dad,” she answered simply, picking up the juice and taking it to the table, effectively ending the discussion.
Mattie wasn’t sure that settled it for her, though. She’d have to watch these two. They had their own secrets, both things they kept from themselves, and those they didn’t even realize they had. But whatever it was, it seemed to make their lives much simpler. And Mattie wanted that. She wanted her life to be simple for once, as it hadn’t been for a long time.
After breakfast the trio began work on a variety of tasks. David set out several traps, hoping to capture any local animals left alive for treatment. Alice announced she was going to check the pond to see whether there were any fish left in it, while Mattie concentrated on feeding the rescued animals and watering the plants. Once the traps were set, David provided fertilizer for the new cuttings he’d taken from the farms they’d visited. As they were finishing, Alice returned clearly excited.
“I found a couple of animals,” she stated proudly. “I’ve got a sick duck. It looks like it flew in and then got too sick to fly out again. I’ve also got a turtle, but I can’t tell if it was sick or not.”
“Technically it’s not a duck, it’s a coot,” her father explained as he examined it. “It’s smaller and not as widespread as the bigger ducks, like mallards.” As she’d described, the poor thing didn’t look very healthy, looking quite thin and having lost quite a few feathers. The turtle, once she set it down, eventually poked it’s head out of its shell, but David also wasn’t able to tell if it had been sick or not.
“What should we do with the turtle?” Alice asked.
“We should keep it here until we’re sure it’s healthy enough to survive on its own. Then we should free it in the hopes it can find a mate. For all we know, it might have a family hidden nearby. As for the coot, it may not be able to fly, but at least it can still serve as breeding stock if we find any more.”
“What about the fish you went looking for?” Mattie asked.
“It doesn’t look good,” Alice replied. The lake is covered with dead fish. “I couldn’t tell if there were any left or not, but it looks like a massive die off.”
“That’s what I figured happened,” David relayed. “Most of the dead fish are probably still under the surface, though, as it takes some time for them to decompose enough to float. The only way to find out if any survived is to try to catch some by either fishing or catching them with a net, but I’d rather wait so any survivors have had a chance to recover before I traumatize them any more. We’ll have to use nets, extracting all the dead fish from the surface.”
“There’s really not much left alive, is there?” Mattie asked, looking concerned now that she’d considered the problem for the first time.
“No, there isn’t. But actually, it looks like the animals around here have fared better than we have. That’s why we’re collecting them. I hope we can give them a slightly better chance of survival than they’d have if left to their own, though frankly, those left would probably survive if left alone. But at least they won’t have to forage for food while they’re recovering.”
“Are you going to name them?” Mattie asked Alice. “After all, you named the other animals.”
“I was thinking Dewey,” Alice replied. “He may be a bit old for the name, but he’s small, so it seems to fit. I couldn’t burden him with a name like Daffy,” she replied with a grin.
“I would have picked Fillmore,” Mattie said.
“Fillmore?” David asked, intrigued.
“Yeah, Fillmore Duck. It’s from the cartoon series, Mallard Fillmore.”
“Ah, yeah, I think I remember him now. He’s supposed to be a conservative reporter. I think his name was taken from Millard Fillmore, who was known as a member of the Know-Nothing movement,” David said, smiling at the memory of simpler times.
“Well, I’ll keep that name as an option if we find any mallards,” Alice offered, even though she knew that was unlikely to happen.
“What about the turtle?” Mattie asked.
“Well, seeing as how I’ve named the rest, how about you pick one?” Alice suggested.
“How about Yertle?”
“That’s as good as anything I could have come up with, and I’ve always been a fan of Dr. Seuss. How about you put him in a pen by himself and feed him some lettuce?”
“When you’re done, I’ll give you a quick lesson on how to fire both your rifle and your pistol. That way, whenever you have time, you can come out and practice until you feel comfortable with it.”
“That’s a good idea. Alice already showed me how to clean and load it.”
“Good, that’s the second most important part. After all, a dirty gun is a sure way to injure yourself, either from an accidental misfire or by getting shot when your gun doesn’t fire,” David explained.
“Alice, can I ask you something personal?” Mattie nervously asked as they finished clearing up one of the houses at the end of David’s road—one of the ones near where Flora had lived—after Alice and David had removed the bodies and were helping Mattie carry the goods she’d found out to the cars.
“Yeah, sure, go ahead. Right now we’re about as close as you can get, so I’m not sure you can get ‘too personal’.”
“I was wondering about you and your dad. Are you… uh, are you sleeping together?” she said in a rush, trying to get the difficult question out before she died of embarrassment, hoping that Alice wouldn’t be offended. Instead she laughed.
“Heavens no,” Alice assured her, not taking the question literally, but instead as it had been intended. “Although I learned more about my father’s sexuality than I ever wanted to know before we got sick, we’ve got no desire to fool around.”
“Well, I’m sorry if I offended you, but I noticed that you spent the night in his room, and I was wondering….”
“Yes, we did ‘sleep together’ last night, just as we have every night since we both recovered, but what you saw was a form of therapy rather than anything sexual. Before we got sick we started to sleep together as a group, cuddling together after the adults finished their ‘business’. When we were ill we curled up together, probably sharing our illnesses, but it also built on our closeness and helped give us strength.
“Now that we’ve recovered, we’ve kept that close physical connection, and since Dad isn’t sexually involved with anyone, and doesn’t really want to be at the moment, it isn’t an issue. Dad and I both take time to ‘take care of ourselves’ in the bathroom before we go to bed, where we simply cuddle up. You should really try it, it’s the best therapy you can buy now, and it’s probably the only thing keeping me sane at this point. I know you’re afraid of touching anyone at this point, but the close physical contact really helps.”
“Hmm, I’ll have to consider it,” Mattie responded, relieved there wasn’t anything kinky going on that she had to be on guard against. She really hadn’t wanted to consider leaving. “It would be nice having someone I can relate to like that, and not have to worry about it becoming sexual. My father and I were never all that close as he was a real ‘man’s man’ and we never quite saw eye to eye. It would be great to develop it now, but it’s a pretty big jump for me.”
“Just so you’re warned, I’m not suggesting that sex doesn’t make itself known,” Alice told her. “Generally Dad gets erections during the night, so I try not to rub against him too much, and if he has a problem he just gets up and heads to the bathroom for anywhere from five to twenty minutes, then he’s OK again for a while. It’s not a perfect system, but it works for us. I’m sure it’ll change if I can find a girlfriend for Dad, but I’ll take advantage of it as long as I can.”
“You’re looking for a girlfriend for your dad?” Mattie asked, confused by the very concept.
“Absolutely,” Alice said. “I got him and his previous girlfriend together. They’d never have done anything if I hadn’t helped set it up. My dad’s really a big geek, and if left to his own desires, he’d live all by himself and never talk to anyone. But he really needs someone in his life, and as soon as I can find someone for him, someone that will bring out the best in him, I’ll gladly step aside. I worry about him. If he’s left alone for too long, he tends to get obsessive. He needs someone to temper him, to distract and motivate him. He really needs women around him to make him more human.”
“Hmm, he seems human enough to me,” Mattie said, contemplating him in a whole new light, but the discussion was interrupted as David entered the room, urging them to hurry it up as he had several things he still wanted to get done.
After they cleaned out the homes nearest David’s house, they drove to the center of town to bury the dead they’d accumulated by the police station using the tractor the sheriff had left there. While David and Alice loaded the bodies, Mattie had raided the cabinets, throwing out any questionable food and loading anything useful into their car. She also checked out the rest of the houses for anything useful; finding several schoolbooks the children who used to live there had used. They weren’t ones that either Alice or she would need, but they might be useful in the future or for someone else. David also turned off the electricity so it would be easier to switch the power on, turned the water off and made sure the burners for the heat and the stove were off. The last thing he needed was to restore power and cause the house to explode.
When they arrived in town, David worked the tractor while Alice shifted the bodies to the edge of the truck’s bed.
“David?” Mattie asked, running up to him.
“Yeah?” he asked, shutting the engine off so he could hear her.
“Someone left you a message. I was looking around, and I noticed something written at the end of your note.”
That certainly got David’s attention, so he climbed off the tractor and went to check it out. He found the following note where he’d told anyone stopping by to check the police station where he’d check by occasionally.
David,
Anxious to meet you. I’ve been looking for you for some time (assuming you’re the David I’ve been looking for). I’ll continue looking on my own, but I’ll also check back here later today.
Tom
“Who do you think it is?” Alice asked.
“Do you know anyone named Tom?” Mattie added.
“I’ve got no clue, and I can’t think of any Toms that would be looking for me.”
“Maybe it’s someone who’s been listening to the radio broadcasts?” Alice suggested.
“Doubtful. We’ve never used my name on the air.”
“Speak for yourself. I always introduce the broadcast as ‘Radio Scott’,” Alice confessed.
“Yeah, but as far as I know, you’ve never given my first name. No, this must be someone else, but I don’t know who it might be.”
“Maybe he’s looking for someone else?” Mattie suggested.
“Then he’s going to be disappointed, as we’re the only ones remaining, or at least that’s what we thought until now,” David replied.
“So what’ll we do until he shows up?” Mattie asked.
“We continue doing what we were doing. He said something about stopping by later, but it doesn’t say what day or what time, so we’ll have to assume it’ll be late. We’ll bury the bodies and clean up a bit more, but if he doesn’t show up by then, we’ll try later. I still wanted to do some other things today.”
So they returned to the now routine task of burying the bodies of people they hadn’t even known. David dug a new pit, then Alice backed her dead truck up to it and they tossed in the bodies and accumulated animal carcasses, while Mattie busied herself cleaning up the remaining animals along the main street. David finished by dumping about a foot of cover on the bodies, but leaving the pit open, since he knew they’d be returning to bury more in the days to come.
They each got busy after that trying to clean up the main business district, collecting the assorted small animal carcasses and leaving scattered plastic bags of them for when they returned. They made steady progress, each working a different area, but soon David noticed that the girls weren’t keeping up. Looking back, he noticed Mattie cleaning up around the storefronts, but he couldn’t see Alice. Wandering back, trying to locate her, he eventually saw her walking towards the woods surrounding the small park in the center of town. Being such a small community, the woods backed right up to the town proper, and this looked to be where Alice was heading. She wasn’t moving directly there, however; instead she’d advance a few steps, stop and listen carefully before moving again, as if she was tracking something.
David knew then that she hadn’t learned her lesson the other day, and was doing the same thing. She’d apparently noticed someone who hadn’t wanted to be noticed, maybe even the mysterious Tom trying to observe them, wanting to see if he actually knew them. But he also knew better than to yell at her. If she was tracking them down, then calling their attention to it would likely get her shot at again. So instead he tried to stealthily and quickly move to catch up with her. Just as he expected, he saw her duck into the woods beyond the park’s clearing.
Swearing to himself, he tried to catch up without attracting attention, which was difficult because the long grass, which hadn’t been cut in some time, hid assorted sticks, pot holes and carcasses that would make noise if he stumbled over them, so he proceeded cautiously. Finally entered the woods, he stopped again to listen, trying to locate her.
“Here boy, here boy,” he heard from off to the left, although he couldn’t see her. He had no idea what she’d found, though it sounded like she’d found a small child, maybe the child of one of the locals that had been hiding since the great die off. Thus he approached even more cautiously.
Coming around some bushes, he entered an area where the large trees overhead, many of them now dead pine trees, let in more light but had kept the undergrowth under control, keeping the area clear. It was on a slope and was a bit rocky as well. There crouched Alice, holding her hand out. David couldn’t tell who she was trying to communicate with, and he peered around the intervening trees carefully trying to see who it was, but he couldn’t make them out.
“It’s all right. We’re not going to hurt you,” Alice said in a light sing-song, enticing voice.
Again, David couldn’t see who she was talking to, although he once again quietly moved closer. As he did, he caught a movement, causing him to freeze and refocus his eyes. There, standing part way up a slight incline stood a large dog, its dark brown color causing it to blend into its surroundings, obscuring it from his vision before. He wasn’t sure of the breed, since he wasn’t up on the different dog breeds, but he guessed it was either a very dirty golden, or possibly some breed of hunting dog.
He swore to himself, angry that Alice had wandered off again, but even angrier that she’d unwittingly put herself at so much risk. Dogs, despite being faithful companions for so long, were carnivores, which meant they had no problem eating dead things if that was all that was available, and dogs were well known to love dead things even in the best of times. What’s more, as the dogs he’d shot at Mattie’s family’s place a couple weeks ago demonstrated, once they got a taste of eating human flesh, dogs would begin to associate humans with food, likely turning on them if pushed. And clearly, a dog that thin and haggard looking looked like it had been pushed to extremes already. Thus the dog was likely both diseased and a threat. David moved several steps forward, trying not to frighten the dog, then knelt and drew his pistol, wishing he’d brought his rifle as the pistol would be unreliable at this distance.
“It’s OK boy, we’re friendly,” Alice continued to plead, but the animal was aware of David now, and was watching him as much as it did Alice.
“Alice!” David hissed, trying to keep his volume and the timbre of his voice down so he wouldn’t startle the animal.
It was only then that she realized he was there, and turning to glance at him, saw him with his pistol ready.
“Dad! Put that away,” she insisted, keeping her own voice low and calm as she argued with him. “He’s not threatening anyone. He’s scared, alone and needs help.”
“He’s turned feral and is thus a threat. There’s no telling what he’s eaten, or how many dead bodies he’s chewed to survive,” David answered back, watching the animal cock its head as it listened to them, edging to the side to keep well away from whatever he planned. He didn’t know just how smart the animal was, but it was doing the right things, because it was putting several obstacles between them, preventing him from getting a clean shot at it. Not that he could expect to hit it from this distance anyway.
“Nonsense,” Alice answered. “Just look at him, would an animal eating dead carcasses be so scrawny? Anyway, you’re scaring him. Go get some food so I can earn his trust.”
“It would if it was sick. How about if you go for the food while I keep him in my sights?” David stressed, not relaxing his guard.
“No, you’re scaring him, and I almost have him convinced. But I’ll never get him to come down if you stay here. Trust me on this. I’ll be fine.”
David could see she had a point, even if he didn’t want to concede it. The dog looked like it hadn’t eaten in some time, looking like it might just pass out where it stood. And while it was dirty and filthy, it didn’t have the blank eyed look the recently sick typically had. As much as he disliked it, he had to make a decision; either fire in the air, scaring the dog away for good, or comply with Alice’s wishes and leave her alone with an animal he didn’t know or trust. Swearing to himself, he dropped his pistol and retreated. He continued backing away, never taking his eyes off of either of them until he got near the underbrush which had obscured them from sight before. At that point he finally turned, disappearing from sight, cursing his daughter for being a naïve trusting soul. Normally it was something he’d encourage, but in the frightening new world they found themselves in, he realized it could very well get her killed.
Entering the overgrown clearing, David saw Mattie, cautiously watching him emerge from the woods. He was encouraged that she had her rifle with her, so she at least had enough sense to prepare herself. He jogged to her, stopping a short distance away, not wanting to get too far away in case his daughter might need him to intervene.
“It’s Alice,” he told her anxiously. “She’s found a dog, which she’s trying to get to come to her, but I don’t trust it. She wants some sort of treat, but I don’t want to leave her alone.”
“Damn, I don’t know what to get for a dog,” Mattie responded. “We brought some canned goods to trade with, but we don’t have any biscuits or balls it’d be interested in, and we can’t very well give it an open can to eat from, because it’ll cut itself and be exposed to the Death.”
Damn the two kids, they both had good points, even if he wasn’t in the mood to encourage creative thinking at that moment. He jogged past her—assuming she’d know enough to not put herself in jeopardy while Alice was—and headed for the truck, which was a ways away.
He was out of breath when he reached it, since it was only a short time since they’d recovered from near death and they hadn’t gotten their stamina back yet. He fished through the few cans they’d brought along in case they needed to trade or give them away to make friends, but didn’t see anything he could offer a dog. As Mattie had said, simply opening a can and letting a dog stick its snout and tongue in it was just asking for trouble, especially with the ever present fear of disease surrounding them. He finally decided on a can on peach slices in heavy syrup and one of Vienna sausages. The syrup would be wasted, obviously, but if they poured it out on the ground the dog could at least eat the fruit and get a little moisture as well. The sausages would be enticing, and could be used to draw the dog in closer. Grabbing a can opener, he struggled to open the two cans as he ran back.
He jogged back to Mattie, now standing at the edge of the forest, and stopped to regain his breath before continuing. Trying to ease the strain on himself, he moved carefully, trying to avoid making any untoward noises, all the while listening carefully for any sounds of distress. Surely if Alice had encountered any trouble Mattie would either have done something, or warned him when he’d arrived, so he felt sure that she was safe, for the moment at least.
Drawing near, he saw Alice now sitting, still trying to entice the reluctant dog. It looked like its resolve was weakening, but it remained leery, and when David approached, it ran back several yards, but still kept a wary eye on them both. Trying his best to ignore it, he walked to Alice, placing the two cans by her knee, and then retreated. This was her baby, she’d have to play it out as she saw fit. If she ran into trouble, she’d be the one to pay the fiddler, but he’d be nearby in case it happened.
After her father disappeared, creating a huge ruckus in the silent woods, Alice turned back to the poor dog. After this much time, she could see it hadn’t been loose for long, although it appeared to be without its owners for some time. She quietly got up and advanced on it a little, pouring the peaches where it could see them, then leaving a trail of Vienna sausages leading back to where she once more sat down to encourage the animal to trust her.
The animal warily watched her the entire time, never quite trusting her, but not fleeing either. They were apparently both here to stick this out, whichever way it turned out.
When Alice sat down, the dog watched to make sure no one else was moving, then began sniffing the air. The dog was a bitch, something that Alice had determined after watching it a while. The scent of the peaches, the syrup and the packaged meat was enough to attract her attention, and she began salivating at the mere thought of what was being offered her. Gradually, she began edging forward, ever watchful for any signs of deceit. She’d been tricked and betrayed enough recently. Moving forward, she started moving more assuredly the closer she approached, until she reached the peaches at the base of the rise. Sniffing them, she tried one, trying to detect any sign of sickness in them. Finding none, and relishing the taste, she wolfed down the rest, trying to lick up any of the remaining syrup.
While that was delicious, and certainly made her want more as it had been a long time since she’d trusted herself to eat anything, she remained cautious. The mysterious girl wasn’t threatening her, and the first of the tiny sausages was only a short distance from where she was now. Taking a few hesitant steps more she sniffed the first one, quickly grabbing it. Hardly taking the time to chew, she swallowed it and knew just that little bit would allow her to continue for at least a few more days. But there were more yet waiting for her. The pull was too much and she couldn’t resist. She advanced to the next one, then the next, and the one after that. Finally she was eyeing the girl, who held several in one hand while holding one out for her in the other. The girl certainly looked honest, and didn’t appear to be threatening, but that’s how Bonita had thought of her owners before they’d left her tied up in the back yard to slowly die of starvation. However, she ignored her trepidation and decided to risk trusting humans again, advancing far enough to sniff the girl’s hand.
When the girl didn’t jerk the treat back she gingerly picked it out of her hand, backing up a couple steps to wolf it down again. Since her stomach had shrunk so much recently, she’d already had more than enough to keep her for a couple of days, but she knew how rare this was, and how she couldn’t trust any other food source she might encounter, so she risked advancing again. She took the next treat the girl offered, and this time she didn’t pull back after she ate it, waiting for the girl to offer the next. While she supplied another, Alice reached up and took hold of the dirty collar she still wore, simply holding her lightly as she fed her more. When Bonita had eaten all there was, Alice simply held her empty hand out to her as if offering proof she had no more, but by then Bonita was hooked. When the girl showed her the can, she sniffed it and tried to lick the remains of the sausages, but that was more for effect than anything else.
Alice and the dog exited the woods a few minutes later, the dog patiently walking beside Alice who held its well-worn collar. Seeing her father and Mattie, Alice called out.
“It’s OK. She trusts me now, but approach slowly as she doesn’t know either of you yet.”
“Are you sure she’s safe?” David asked, remaining skeptical.
“Yeah, she apparently chewed through her restraints, which must have taken a while. She’s also torn her collar up, so she probably struggled with it for a while. I don’t think she’d been sick, but obviously her owners died while she was tied outside. When she escaped, I’m guessing she avoided anything that smelled like it might be infected, or maybe she just avoided the smell of death. It doesn’t look like she’s eaten anything for a long time.”
Alice held the dog as Mattie slowly approached it, and the animal flinched slightly as she reached out to pet it. Finding no threatening actions, she let herself be petted, glad she’d finally found some humans she could trust once again.
“You realize just how lucky you are it didn’t attack you?” David grilled his daughter, venting some of his frustration. “It could easily have been either infected or vicious, and it was clearly desperate in either case. What’s more, you didn’t know if there was anyone or anything else nearby.”
“Yeah, I realize all of that, but when I recognized there was something watching us, I couldn’t ignore it. I figured if I approached it slowly that she wouldn’t be scared, and that approach worked. She didn’t run, and she eventually trusted me enough to approach on her own.”
“Where are we supposed to keep her?” David asked. “We can’t put her in the dead truck if she hasn’t already been exposed, and I don’t like the idea of keeping her in the cab with either you or Mattie.”
“I’ll keep her with me, since she doesn’t trust the two of you yet. She should be fine. I think she’s too exhausted to cause any trouble. Maybe we should stop by the library and see if we can find anything on training dogs. It seems to me we’d better train her so we can keep her from doing anything that might get her in trouble.”
“Yeah, we can do that. I think it’s time we headed out anyway. Come on, Mattie; help me pick up all these plastic bags. Obviously Alice has her hands full.”
“What are you going to name her?” Mattie asked, more concerned with such a trivial detail rather than David instructions.
“I’m thinking I’ll call her Lassie. She’s the wrong kind of dog, but I’m hoping she can help us, and she’s female like Lassie was.”
“Actually, Lassie was usually played by male dogs,” David informed them, even though that factoid didn’t weigh much on their current mindsets.
“That makes sense,” Mattie replied, ignoring the adult voice of reason. “Have you tried calling her that yet?”
“Not yet, I figure I’ll start using it slowly, with things she can clearly associate it with,” Alice explained.
“Hey, this is wonderful news, but we’ve got a lot of other things to do yet,” David insisted, trying to hurry them along. “Let’s get a move on so we can get out of here.”
“What about the guy we’re waiting for?” Mattie asked.
“We can’t wait all day for him, and if he hasn’t showed up yet, we’ll try to catch him later. I’ll leave him a note telling him we’ll be back at ten in the morning. Hopefully that’s specific enough he can figure out how long to wait even if he doesn’t have a watch. But I wanted to check out more of the surrounding towns to see if there are any more signs of life.”
So they headed off, a father and a little girl, picking up bags of dead animal carcasses, while an older girl walked behind them with a cautious but accepting dog she didn’t know following behind them, each heading into the great unknown, trusting the others to be there for them.
They got situated in the two vehicles and took off to investigate the other nearby communities, so Alice took Lassie, and David took Mattie while they remained in contact via radios. David had left the note he’d promised, but he really didn’t want to waste the whole day waiting for someone who might never show up.
They headed off in a new direction, heading northwest of the town along a small two lane road. As expected, there were several obstructions, both dead bodies and abandoned cars, but usually they could just drive around them, crossing over the shoulder to avoid the obstructions. They also had to stop frequently to load another carcass into Alice’s dead truck.
Traveling quite a ways and seeing no signs of anyone else, and no signs of human habitation, they come up on yet another town, Riverdale, noticing an obstruction across the road. Completely blocking the roadway were two cars, standing end to end. In front of the cars were a pile of human bodies, tossed haphazardly as a potential warning to anyone coming upon the scene. There was also a crudely painted sign leaning against the abandoned cars blocking the road that read “No Admittance. Keep your sickness to yourself!”
David had no idea if the bodies in the pile had died from the Great Death, or whether some had been killed by the people who’d set up the roadblock, but David wasn’t about to let someone block public access for their personal benefit. He hadn’t stood for it when individuals where holding people up, and he wouldn’t do it for anyone trying to protect themselves from exposure either. There was too much depending on people’s free transit.
Seeing no one nearby, but being cognizant of the likelihood of their being observed, David pulled to a stop and motioned Alice up to join them.
“I’m going to remove the obstruction and clean up the bodies for them. Hopefully they’ll forgive our meddling if they see we’re willing to help them by removing their dead for them. If they’re hoping to avoid illness, they certainly won’t accomplish it by leaving that much death lying just outside their door.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Mattie asked worriedly, even though Alice simply accepted what he suggested without question. She knew him well enough to know how he thought. “I mean, they might try to stop us,” Mattie pressed.
“The idea that anyone can obstruct the free passage of individuals trying to survive is a bad idea. If these people want to isolate themselves, then they’re free to do that. But they can do that by staying indoors in their own refuge. They can’t do it be restricting the freedom and movement of other people trying to survive. Moving this obstruction is a message I want to establish. I don’t mind people wanting to be left alone, but I want to allow people to do whatever they need to survive.
“However, we do run the risk of an armed conflict, so you’ll have to watch and guard us with your rifle, Mattie. We’ll leave our rifles nearby and keep our pistols handy, but hopefully we can get it cleaned up and moved aside before they’re even aware we’re here.”
“Yeah, like driving up in a couple of big trucks when there’s no other noise around, and spending hours moving bodies and abandoned cars around isn’t likely to attract attention,” Mattie replied, even as she grabbed her guns and staked out a decent defensive position.
As they got busy, with Alice backing her truck up to make the loading of bodies easier, David reconsidered how he’d chosen to prepare for this trip. Clearly next time he was going to carry both the body armor and the headsets they’d recovered from the armory after it had been attacked by survivalists. They’d have been sensible in this instance. David had no idea if this was the work of a single person, a couple or even a whole community, but he didn’t like the idea of people taking pot shots at them.
He’d chosen to travel light because he figured the likelihood of encountering anyone was pretty remote, but that clearly wasn’t the case. They’d traveled a good distance, and there were survivors around. How many they didn’t know yet, and it didn’t look like anyone was going to make taking a census an easy task.
David and Alice worked quickly so they wouldn’t remain sitting ducks while doing so for long. Alice had left Lassie in her car, afraid she might not know to leave the bodies alone or how she’d respond to other people. Whether she chose to chase or avoid them, either one could be a bad choice considering how things occurred, and not knowing how she’d respond could make a bad situation even worse.
It took a while, but they finally got the last of the bodies stowed. David then turned to the next task at hand.
“Alice, make sure the brakes are released on those cars. I’ll try pushing them aside with my truck.”
“Forget that,” Alice countered. “It’ll be easier if we simply push the cars out of the way. That’s how it looks like they did it in the first place, and it won’t risk damaging your car. It shouldn’t take us much to move it, and you can guard us while Mattie and I try to move them.”
“There’s no way the two of you are strong enough to manage those cars. I’ll have to help you. Mattie, you’ve got guard duty again. Keep an eye on our surroundings,” he said as he led the way to the two cars.
As expected, both cars were pock marked with multiple meteoroid inflicted punctures. But while he was sure the gas tanks had been drained, the tires were inflated, and the cars weren’t damaged enough to prevent them from manually moving them. Between the two of them, they soon got the one car rolling onto the road’s shoulder, and once they’d cleared that one, they did the same to the other one.
Having accomplished that, David grabbed the notepad he always carried with him and wrote a quick note, which he stuck in the side window of the car where anyone trying to move it would immediately notice it.
We can’t allow you to block public passage, and this is a point we’re willing to defend with arms if necessary. If you want to avoid sickness, then avoid people, but don’t obstruct their free movement.
Below that, as an addendum, he added the following:
We’re trying to reach people in need, offering to trade food or other resources. If you want to be left alone, that’s fine. But if you need anything, either meet us this evening or leave a note and we’ll see if we can help.
David
P.S. We broadcast daily messages over the radio if you want to know what we stand for and that we mean you no harm. If you have working radios, listen to channel 100.0 tonight at 10pm.
With that out of the way, they climbed back in their vehicles and moved past the obstructions; David remaining nervous about someone taking a shot at them as they passed.
“That was pretty brave, but maybe just a little stupid,” Mattie suggested once they were on their way again.
“Maybe, but it was necessary. Someone needs to make sure that people act sensibly, and if anyone stands in the way of anyone else’s survival, then it’s something we can’t allow to stand,” David told her.
“I’m not saying it’s not important,” Mattie argued, “but I’m just asking what you would have done if someone had taken a shot at us?” She was actually more interested in what to expect than in David’s actions, since she was sure the situation was bound to come up, even if it hadn’t this time.
“I would have tried talking to them,” he insisted. “And if that didn’t work, I would have defended us. If they injured one of us, I’d either get us out of here, or I’d make them sorry they made a nuisance of themselves. That’s another thing we can’t stand for, is people hurting others for their own benefit. There are too few people to allow anyone to wantonly kill others. We’ve already killed several people who felt that basic human morality no longer applied to them, and I’m not afraid to teach someone that lesson again,” he answered with a note of finality.
That was all that Mattie had really wanted, simply a clarification on how they were supposed to handle situations. She wanted to know whether she was expected to kill an opponent as soon as he appeared, when he fired the first shot, or whether she was supposed to reason with him first. While his answer wasn’t clear, it at least told her his intent, and that was enough for the moment. She spent the rest of the trip steeling herself for when she’d have to take a life on her own, since she realized it was no longer a remote possibility.
Driving further, they again observed no signs of life, neither living individuals, animal life nor even any signs of human activity. However, that soon changed when they passed a neighborhood complex that had four bodies hanging from trees by the gate to the complex. It was a grisly sight, as the bodies were long dead, both shriveled and with body parts having fallen off, their skin blackened and graying by exposure to the elements. Since the insect and bird populations had been so decimated, bodies didn’t decay as rapidly as they usually did, so these looked almost petrified. Not even mold seemed to grow on them. Chances are the bits that had fallen off had been struck by falling limbs rather than simply rotting off.
David figured that was a good time to turn around. He didn’t think it represented a particular threat to them. After all, they had no idea if the people who’d strung the people up were still alive or not, but he realized their trip was taking them too far out of their way, and if they hoped to connect with their mysterious stranger, they needed to be getting back.
“That’s pretty disgusting,” Mattie observed as David performed a slow three point U-turn, and then waited while Alice did the same after he’d finished.
“We did something similar ourselves,” he informed her. “The sheriff deputized me, authorizing me to act with the full authority of the police, complete with badge and everything. We went out trying to see what trouble people were getting up to when we ran into a group stopping people with a roadblock they’d set up at a bridge. It turns out they were killing the men, robbing everyone, then raping the women. We killed them all, then I set their heads up on spikes I’d carried with me for just that purpose, both facing incoming and outgoing traffic across the bridge as a warning to others. It’s a messy way to convey a message, but it’s a necessary message to get across. It basically says that we won’t put up with lawlessness just because the social fabric has shredded, and that the people who live here are willing to enforce society’s laws on their own if they need to.”
“Yeah, I got that message,” she assured him. “Though it doesn’t exactly encourage anyone to stick around and discuss the topic,” she added, looking back at the dangling bodies as they drove away. David considered it strange that she’d find those three bodies so disturbing when she hadn’t batted an eyelash over the many dead bodies they’d handled over the course of the day. But then, he figured these represented people that someone had killed, as opposed to those who’d simply died, and that it thus represented a new level of reality for her.
They got back late, late enough that they missed the six o’clock broadcast that evening. They’d stopped at the previous roadblock, but didn’t see any clear sign of his messages acceptance or rejection, so he left a couple of cans of food simply as a sign of good will before continuing on.
When they reached their own town square, there was no sign of the mysterious Tom. There was also no additional notes on the door of the police station, so after glancing around and burying their new load of dead bodies, they returned home, not sure whether they were disappointed or relieved to have not met anyone that day.
Reaching home, Alice ran inside to perform a late 7:30 broadcast. She’d walked Lassie while they’d buried the bodies. Mattie watered and fed the animals while David emptied the vehicles of everything they’d picked up during the day, with David noticing they’d never stopped by the library, something he planned to rectify the next day.
“Mattie was worried about our sleeping together,” Alice told her father as they cuddled together in bed that night after they’d settle down for the evening. “She was afraid it was sexual.”
“Yeah, I was afraid she’d pick up on that,” he complained. “I’d been meaning to tackle the topic, but I just couldn’t quite think of an opening. So far she’s been pretty reserved and hasn’t really opened up to either of us yet.”
“Well, she’s been through a lot, and just like you, she’s chosen to shut down her emotions rather than risk getting hurt that badly again. She’ll come around eventually, just like you will, but it’s going to take time. But I told her that what we shared wasn’t sexual, going as far as describing how we avoided any unpleasantries, so I think she’ll come to accept it, but it may take some time.”
“You know, for someone so young, you’ve certainly become quite mature.”
Alice merely looked at her father like he was a dufus who’d missed the past several weeks.
“A lot has changed, and we’ve all been forced to grow up rapidly,” she informed him. “Even Mattie is quite mature for her age. She had no problem with the idea of defending us, and she took to that firing range like it had been a life’s dream for her. I think she’s well aware of what’s going to be required of her, despite her years.”
“Yeah, I got that message long ago when you girls started stating your independence by getting in our face about what we were doing sexually,” he responded, remembering events of only a short time ago that now felt like the ‘good old days’, despite being only a few weeks past.
“That was necessary,” Alice informed him. “You were ready to keep us as we were, as the innocent naïve young girls we’d been. It seemed the easiest way of getting through to you, and you’ve got to admit, you were pretty hard to ignore.”
“Us?” David protested. “At least we didn’t camp outside of your bedroom listening in to whatever happened inside.”
“No, but the chemistry was clear between each of you, and we wanted to show that we wanted to be considered equals, even if we weren’t ready for sex ourselves. Though I feel bad for all my friends. They all died without ever having become women.”
“Each of your friends were very capable and mature women. Having sex isn’t what defines a person; it’s simply a footnote in your life. A footnote that you can easily move forwards or backwards in your life, but it ultimately doesn’t matter as to who you are as a person. I like to think they knew they were loved and protected, if not by their families then at least by us. I hope that was enough for them,” he answered as an awkward silence descended over them, as each contemplated one more time what each had lost in such a short amount of time.