by Ike Hamill
“I thought so,” he whispered.
At the sound of something moving through the jungle, his sense of accomplishment evaporated. It was replaced by naked fear.
Whatever was moving, it was big, and it sounded fast.
Tim held his breath.
Chapter 14: Lisa
“In the old days, this whole trip would have taken less than a day,” Lisa said. “We would have woken up in Gladstone, had a nice breakfast, and we would have been at the Outpost before dark.”
Lisa was navigating. Robby was driving. Alone in the rear seat, Ashley leaned her head against the window.
“You’ve said that, like, a million times already,” Ashley said. “You might be getting a little senile, Aunt Lisa.”
“How does it happen?” Robby asked Lisa.
“What?”
“I was a teenager when the world ended, and I was never so rude or dismissive of my elders. I didn’t have time. We certainly didn’t raise our children to have so little respect for people. Then, as soon as I blinked, there are teenagers everywhere who tell adults the rudest things,” Robby said.
“It’s fear. Nothing less,” Lisa said with a smile. “You watch your loved ones fading away and you think that if you shame them they will try harder and live longer. It’s a flawed understanding of aging, but it’s perfectly natural.”
Ashley sighed and thumped her forehead against her window. “Sorry, Aunt Lisa. I didn’t mean anything by it.”
“No problem, dear,” Lisa said. “Just for the record, your father is telling half of the truth. He was never rude, but he was often dismissive. When someone told him to do something that he didn’t believe would work, he would nod pleasantly and then do whatever the hell he wanted to. Looking back, I can’t believe that all of us adults happily listened to the crazy theories of a thirteen year old.”
“I was fourteen when I met you,” Robby said.
“Whatever,” Lisa laughed.
Robby took a right and Lisa saw the mowed lawns and maintained buildings up on the hill. It was refreshing to see an inhabited space after all of the ruins they had seen along the way. Someone walking between buildings stopped and raised a hand in greeting.
“Welcome to the Outpost,” Robby said.
Ashley leaned forward between the seats and took it all in with wide eyes.
“Settle down, Ash,” Lisa said. “It’s just a couple of houses.”
“I’ve only ever seen it on video,” Ashley said. “It’s cool.”
“Uh huh,” Lisa said, rolling her eyes. “Aim us toward the gardens, will you, Robby? I’m dying for some food that was grown on purpose.”
“There’s nothing wrong with foraging,” Ashley said. “What do you think we’re going to survive on out in the jungle?”
“That’s precisely why I want to barter for some produce now, darling,” Lisa said.
“I’ll drop you off,” Robby said. “I want to show Ashley what I’ve put together for her trip.”
“How long have you known that I was going to want to go out into the jungle?” Ashley asked her father. “I’m pretty sure I only decided to go recently.”
“You’ve been thinking about it longer than that,” Robby said with a laugh. “You can’t fool me.”
Robby took them up over the hill and down into an old neighborhood. Lisa could tell by the fences where the gardens were located. They had the same problem as Gladstone—deer would come in if they didn’t put up big fences around everything. She also spotted solar panels that would be used for the water pumps and electric fencing. Robby pulled over next to a gate.
“Let me get my babies out of the back,” Lisa said. She waved farewell to Ashley and rounded the back of the vehicle. Lifting the tailgate, she pulled a tray of plants that she had packed hastily back in Gladstone. She had a tomato variety that grew much better from clones than seeds. She found that her little clones were the best received gifts when she visited other farms.
After she closed the back of the SUV, Robby pulled away.
Lisa balanced the tray on one arm while she opened the gate.
A man rushed up behind her.
“I’ll get that,” he said, reaching around her. “Lisa, right?”
“Yes,” she smiled back at him. “You’re…”
“Andrew,” he said. “I think we met in Donnelly once.”
“Of course. You helped with Romie.”
He nodded and motioned for her to lead the way. Lisa felt both envy and admiration as soon as she entered their garden area. The place looked like it stretched on forever. The group had put up fences between the houses of a little suburban strip and used the enclosed space to install rows of raised beds. Some of the houses looked inhabited. Others had been turned into hothouses or utility sheds. Through the patio doors of one of the buildings, she saw that a kitchen with a vaulted ceiling was now shelter to an orange tree.
Further down, she saw something even more exotic for their area.
“Are those avocado trees?”
Andrew smiled and nodded.
“Wow. All I brought you guys is my tomatoes.”
“We’ve heard about them. I’m glad you brought them.”
“You’re too kind,” Lisa said. “Will you give me a tour?”
“Of course. Let me take you to our potting room first. We can get those guys in soil.”
Lisa almost wished she hadn’t stopped by to see their garden. She knew it was going to be even more difficult to go with Ashley into the jungle now that she had seen it.
She knocked on the door even though the number on the house was right and her own SUV was parked in the driveway.
“Come on in,” Robby said, opening the door. “We’re just finishing our inventory.”
In the living room, they had two big packs in the middle of the floor. The contents for the packs were spread out on the carpet.
“Only one tent?” Lisa asked.
“We’ll share,” Ashley said. “It’s less weight for one two-person tent.”
“But if we get split up…”
“Are you planning on leaving me, Aunt Lisa?”
Lisa shrugged.
“Water, purification tablets, vitamins, field guide,” Robby said, ticking items off of his list.
“We can survive,” Ashley said. “I’m not worried about that. It’s less than two days to the west river.”
“You can be cavalier about food, Ashley, but you have to take water seriously,” Robby said. He pointed the end of his pencil at her as he spoke. “If you get dehydrated, nothing else will help you. We don’t have any rainfall data, and we don’t know if there are any ponds or springs.”
“There are always ponds and springs,” Ashley said. “People don’t go thirsty in a jungle.”
Robby shook his head.
“Listen to your father,” Lisa said. “He has survived a lot based on his wits.”
“Fine,” Ashley said.
“You have flint and steel in these knives. Don’t count on fire though. People have experimented with fire at the periphery of the jungle, but there is no data for deeper in. Also, pay close attention to your state of mind. Key an eye on each other. Let’s not assume that the atmosphere will support life.”
“Fire? Air?” Ashley asked. “You really think there’s a chance that oxygen doesn’t exist in the jungle? What are all those plants producing.”
“I don’t know,” Robby said. “That’s the point. We literally have no explanation for why electricity doesn’t work over there. We don’t have a single testable theory. So why would we assume that oxygen and fire have meaning over there? Let’s not make any assumptions about the basic things required to keep you alive.”
“It’s understandable,” Lisa said, “and I will go along with it, but you have to admit that we’re being a little dramatic about this, right?”
Robby raised his eyebrows. He clearly didn’t appreciate being undercut when he was trying to ensure their safety.
“I mean,
even where devices don’t work, it’s not like people are falling over dead, right? If all electricity didn’t work, wouldn’t our nervous system shut down as well? We don’t have any documented sickness or injury based on going into the jungle.”
Robby turned up his hands and looked toward the ceiling.
“Yes, okay,” Lisa said. “I know—better safe than sorry.”
“Relax, Dad,” Ashley said. “We will take along all this gear, and we will be careful to not take anything for granted. Lisa and I will periodically check that we can make fire, the air is safe to breathe, and whatever.”
Before Ashley could continue, she was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Come in,” Robby called.
The woman on the other side of the door had a dog on a leash.
Lisa greeted Gloria. Robby knelt down to say hello to the leashed dog. After she heard the name, Lisa remembered the dog as a puppy. She was named Penny, and belonged to Tim.
“Can we talk in private for a second, Robby?” Gloria asked.
“Sure,” Robby said. “Of course.”
His eyes darted around the room before he waved Gloria and Penny toward the kitchen. Ashley sidled toward the doorway, clearly intending to listen in.
“Ashley, come out to the vehicle and let’s get our clothes. I want to make sure we have enough room for our personal stuff along with all this camping gear.”
Ashley couldn’t hide her disappointment, but she came along dutifully. On the way across the lawn, Lisa asked, “Are you going to bring along a bow and arrows? You didn’t bring one down, did you?”
“No,” Ashley said. “We don’t have evidence of game over there, and I didn’t think it would be necessary. We can survive on plants and supplies for the trip.”
“Small animals are denser in energy,” Lisa said. “And over there, if we find animals they’re not going to be so skittish.”
They grabbed their bags from the SUV and hauled them toward the house.
“People always say that,” Ashley said. “Any time we go to somewhere uninhabited, people say that the animals aren’t going to have a natural fear of predation, but there are always predators. You think rabbits live in the jungle without predators?”
“I guess you’re right. I just think it would be smart to cover all our bases.”
“The energy to carry it would be more…”
“Fine,” Lisa said, interrupting. ”I’m not going to argue.”
Ashley held the door open for Lisa and they entered to find that Gloria and Robby were back in the living room.
“Everything okay?” Lisa asked.
“You have a third member of your team,” Robby said.
Lisa raised her eyebrows and glanced between Gloria and the dog. She wasn’t excited about either one of them joining the expedition. They seemed like they would be a burden in different ways. Gloria was a scientist, and probably didn’t know all that much about hiking and living off the land. The dog would require different food and would be difficult to feed. Before Lisa could open her mouth to voice a soft objection, Robby clarified.
“Tim has gone into the jungle already. Gloria wanted me to watch Penny so she could go after him. I told her that you two were going, so there’s no need.”
Ashley tilted her head and appeared confused. “We’re not going on a rescue mission, Dad.”
“No, I know. I would like you guys to track down Tim so he knows you’re out there too. Then you can decide if your objectives align. That’s all.”
“How are we even supposed to find him?” Ashley asked.
“He was going to leave a trail of orange blazes. You should be able to follow those,” Gloria said.
Lisa tried to read Ashley’s expression. When she was lost in thought, it was nearly impossible to tell what Ashley was thinking. At the moment, the young woman seemed a little confused.
“Okay,” Ashley said with a shrug.
“Thank you,” Gloria said. “I’ll take this one back to the yard. She’s an escape artist. She knows exactly where Tim went and she is bound and determined to go with him.”
Lisa nodded. They were in a rare moment in their house where nobody had a dog. Usually, there was one or more following the kids around. Bad luck had taken two dogs away from them in the course of just a couple of months and they were letting everyone emotionally heal before they tried to track down another puppy.
It seemed that the bonds between people and dogs were even stronger now. When Lisa was a kid, dogs had few responsibilities and were much more pets than family members. Now, it seemed like they were counted on for work, and expected to contribute to the survival of the whole community. It wasn’t surprising that Penny was eager to go join Tim.
When Gloria opened the door, she automatically took another loop of leash into her hand. Penny behaved well, despite the obvious tension in her muscles. The dog was ready to spring, but holding herself back in deference to the leash.
“Talk to you soon,” Robby called after Gloria.
Gloria didn’t respond to him, only to Lisa and Ashley. “You guys be careful, okay? Remember the first objective of your mission.”
“What’s that?” Ashley asked.
“Safety.”
Gloria shut the door behind herself.
They took until sunset to pack and then all went out for a walk. Lisa needed to burn off some energy so she would be able to sleep. The way that Ashley moved around on the balls of her feet, her nerves were contagious. If Lisa would have agreed, they would have left right then, regardless of the fact that flashlights wouldn’t work in the jungle.
“It has to be magnetic, right?” Ashley said as they climbed a hill. “There’s some overwhelming magnetic force that’s disrupting the normal flow of electrons over there. That has to be the issue.”
“Don’t underestimate the people who have been working on this problem,” Robby said. “They have dragged enormous conductors across the river and tested thousands of theories. None of them have shown any logical results whatsoever. If the problem were purely magnetic, then the results would have shown resistance to current, right? Well, as far as we know, there is no way to excite the movement of electrons in a conductor via any amount of voltage. The model that works over here simply fails to exist over there.”
Ashley was too distracted to really listen.
“That can’t be true. Everything works on electrons and voltage. Everything. If it all stopped then everything would stop. Would chemistry even be a thing? How would plants grow? How would our nervous system continue to function?”
Robby smiled at his daughter’s enthusiasm.
“I know you have your own goals, but if you do discover anything material in your journey, I hope you’ll seriously consider coming back with the findings. Everyone over here would be thrilled with some kind of breakthrough,” Robby said.
They walked in silence for a moment. As they ascended the hill, they were catching up to the setting sun as it tried to dip below the hills on the horizon. It was a pretty place to live, but Lisa knew she wouldn’t be happy away from the coast. Where they lived, they had it all. There were lakes, the ocean, hills, and plenty of flat land with rich soil. Aside from the winter storms, their area was perfect. The people in the Outpost might have more moderate temperatures, but they paid a high price for that.
“What about Norfolk? I went there once. It was nice,” Lisa said.
Ashley looked at her like she was crazy. Robby smiled, welcoming the non sequitur.
“All burned, from what I could tell,” Robby said. “All the coastal areas south of New York were destroyed in one way or the other. Tornadoes, fire, or flooding—there aren’t a lot of good houses around. There was a small group from Donnelly who wanted to go build on the north shore of the Delaware Bay. I don’t remember what stopped them. I think it was the bridges. Some are still passable, but only if you’re willing to take a substantial risk that they will last until you want to come back.”
“
Huh,” Lisa said. “Just travel by boat then.”
“Limiting,” Robby said. “Maybe though. Just over here is the best view,” Robby said, pointing.
They followed him over to a tower that was built next to a little clearing. It reminded Lisa of a lifeguard stand, only taller. Ashley was the first up the ladder. Robby went behind Lisa and waited patiently while Lisa found her feet up on the platform. They moved to the railing and looked south.
“It goes on forever,” Lisa said. The canopy of green across the river was unbroken.
“The fog seems to be minimal at sunset,” Robby said. “At noon, you can’t see more than a mile before the fog blocks everything. On one of the other towers, they rigged an enormous spotlight so they could see if the fog existed at night. It does—at least to artificial light.”
“But it looked pretty clear from the satellite imagery,” Ashley said.
“Only straight down,” Robby said. “Do you remember how it looked around the edges? It was fogged out.”
“I figured all the images looked like that,” Ashley said. “Some issue with the lens or the sensor, right?”
“I don’t think so. I think it’s the same fog. It doesn’t appear to be a physical vapor or anything. My only guess is that it’s a difference in the way that photons travel over there.”
“Come on,” Ashley said.
Robby only shrugged. With a sigh, he said, “I know. It defies explanation.”
“I can’t believe you haven’t gone over there yet,” Lisa said to Robby. She regretted it as soon as she said it. Robby still traveled, obviously, but he was very careful with his own safety. He absolutely refused to do anything that would put his life in real jeopardy. He had three children and they had already lost their mother. Robby wouldn’t do anything to make them suffer another loss.
Robby sighed again. When he turned to Ashley, he took both of his daughter’s hands and waited until he had her full attention.