by Ike Hamill
“You have to be careful. Remember that.”
Ashley seemed calm for the first time that evening.
“I will, Dad. I promise.”
Chapter 15: Corinna
Corinna parked her motorcycle over near the fuel depot and walked the rest of the way. She climbed the steps to the park, walked the dirt path that was carved between basketball and tennis courts, and slipped through the hole in the fence. The building was surrounded by tall trees. It was only a matter of time before one fell and took out a chunk of the place. She went down the concrete stairs and pounded her fist against the metal door.
She heard the whir of the camera above her.
Corinna raised her hand and gave the camera an exasperated smile in the dark. He would see her. The camera was outfitted with infrared.
The door buzzed and unlocked, just like an old apartment building from the city.
“You’re backsliding again, Liam,” she called, pulling the door shut behind her. It buzzed again and clicked as the locks shot back home.
Corinna snaked down the hall and turned the corner to his living room. The room didn’t have a single exterior wall. Above them, there were five floors of apartments that would be perfectly lovely with a small amount of cleaning. Liam preferred to live underground, especially at night.
“Did you bring me anything?”
“Nope,” she said. “I heard that someone discovered a stash of popcorn in a warehouse. It was stored in a vacuum and they said that it’s still good.”
“Impossible,” Liam said.
Corinna took one of the wooden chairs. The cushions in his upholstered chairs always felt damp to her.
“Are you calling me a liar?” she asked.
He looked as white as a ghost. He clearly hadn’t been outside in some time.
“I’m just saying that the last time we found vacuum sealed popcorn it was no good. The kernels need to have moisture inside them in order to pop. The vacuum pulls the moisture out or something.”
“Huh,” Corinna said. She slipped the bag off her shoulder and pulled out the package. “I guess you don’t want it then.”
It was a five-pound bag. With rationing, it could last him months and months. Liam had never been good at rationing though.
“Shut up,” he said. When he reached for it, she snatched it away.
“What do you say?”
“How long are you going to treat me like I’m five?”
Corinna raised her eyebrows. He already knew the answer. To say it out loud would only hurt them both. Liam sat back and folded his arms across his chest. Corinna frowned and put the bag of popcorn on the table. At one point, he had worked hard to grow corn that could be dried to make decent popcorn. Liam had cheerfully given up his crop when it turned out to be the only thing that kept the cows producing. Milk for the kids was more important than his own nostalgia. It had been the last project that Liam had involved himself in. Something about the experience had broken his will.
She studied him for a few minutes. He wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“Come with me,” she said. “I’m going north to the border. They’re doing interesting work.”
He shook his head. “You know I can’t.”
“I know that you’ll fight me. We’ll go back and forth, arguing, and then you’ll eventually give in. I also know that you’ll have a great time when we get back on the road. It will be like old times.”
“The old times were only fun for you,” he said.
Liam still wouldn’t look at her.
“I was terrified, constantly.”
“You only say that. I know what you look like when you’re happy.”
“And am I happy right now?”
“No.”
“Think about that, Corinna. If I’m unhappy at the idea of going north with you, why do you assume that I was so happy back then? You only remember the good times. You have this incredibly well-developed ability to block out the bad things in the past and only remember the good ones. It’s really hurtful, and disrespectful.”
She wanted to jump to her feet and walk it off, but then Liam would simply criticize that. He was brilliant and picking up on her foibles and absolutely blind to his own. Corinna made herself stay perfectly still.
“Disrespectful?”
Liam nodded. “Think of all the people who have suffered, and all the people who have died. I’m not talking about the whole world, I’m just talking about Donnelly. You’re so quick to shed the weight of what everyone has been through. It’s disrespectful to the price that we’ve all paid.”
“What are we supposed to do, drown in our own tears? Are we supposed to shackle ourselves to depression just because we survived hardship? Get over yourself. Nobody cares about the past. The future is what matters.”
“Disrespectful,” he said with another frown.
Corinna sighed. It was getting harder and harder to visit him. It was true—she liked to put negative things behind her and focus on the future. It wasn’t a skill that she had always enjoyed. It took discipline to police her thoughts and keep herself on track, and she had worked hard to achieve a positive outlook. When Liam had grown old enough to take care of himself and he had demanded some independence, Corinna had been both sad and elated. She experienced freedom and loss at the same time.
Now, she was feeling a different kind of loss. This time, she was going to pull away from him. It was coming and there didn’t seem to be anything that she could do to stop it.
“I’m almost done,” she said.
“With what?”
“With this. With you.”
Corinna never let herself cry, usually. This time, she couldn’t control it.
Liam didn’t answer.
“If I’m almost done, think about everyone else, Liam. How long do you think they’re going to support you? You haven’t fulfilled any of the mandates. Do you really think that you can exist on your own?”
“They won’t abandon me. There are too few of us.”
“You’ve already abandoned them. Donnelly is focused on growth. You’re focused on wallowing. You’re not just refusing to help, you’re actively dragging everyone else down.”
Liam looked at the floor.
Corinna wondered who was bringing him his food. It was clear that he hadn’t been outside of his basement apartment in forever. His power came from the town’s grid and his water came from the town’s supply. Eventually, they were going to cut him off. He wouldn’t last a week without their help.
“I’m not doing it on purpose,” he said.
Decades before, Liam had been afraid of the open sky. There was a point when Corinna had been convinced that Liam had conquered that fear. Now she wasn’t sure if he was regressing or simply depressed.
“Okay,” Corinna said. “I don’t know what to say anymore. I’m always ready to help you, just as soon as you’re willing to accept my help. You know how to get in touch.”
She stood up.
His eyes landed on her for a fraction of a second and then slid off again. Whatever he was waiting for, he was still waiting.
She let her fingers brush his shoulder as she passed by him on the way to the door. When she looked back, she was about to put out the offer again—he could go north with her and see the expeditions that were exploring the mysteries up there. He was looking at the bag of popcorn. Corinna left him there.
Before heading north of Donnelly, Corinna logged her intended route onto the message board. Nobody would care. She was only doing it so that Liam wouldn’t have any excuse if they ever fought about it in the future.
After that, she was free to leave. Since nobody had known she was coming, there was nobody to say goodbye to. Corinna enjoyed that freedom. For a while, she had lived in a communal house with several people. It had been convenient to be able to rely on others to help look after Liam when he was little. Even living in the same house had led to too many dependencies. There was always talk of what they were going to do for din
ner, or where they might take a walk in the morning. Corinna preferred to play things by ear.
She thought about that communal house as she sat straddling her motorcycle. If she stayed there, meditating on her solitary nature, it was only a matter of time before someone discovered her. Corinna started the engine and took off up the road.
She drove with a big tank of fuel strapped to the back of the machine. It would easily be enough to get her to the next fuel truck. The exploration teams had left several tankers on the highways to support expeditions. So it wasn’t true freedom that she enjoyed. She had to stick to a route that would take her to a fuel depot before she ran out. It was close enough though.
The sun set before Corinna reached a decision point. If she turned east, she would follow Trent’s group on their path through the White Mountains. North would take her to where Jackson’s crew was exploring into Canada.
She liked Trent more, but Jackson was headed in a more interesting direction.
The choice paralyzed Corinna. She shut off the motorcycle and decided to sleep on the decision. Leaving the bike on the shoulder of the highway, Corinna grabbed her pack and descended the slope to the river. Her eyes adjusted fast to the darkness. The Milky Way cut a river of light through the sky and Corinna picked her way across the rocks to the bubbling water.
She found a small patch of sand and dropped her pack.
The crickets played their songs, filling the night air with music. As long as she was quiet, they sang. Corinna collected sticks and then dragged a log from the bank. When she dropped it on her makeshift fire pit, the crickets went silent for a second. They resumed their song as she piled the sticks and struck a match.
The crackling flames consumed Corinna’s attention.
This wasn’t her life. She was from the city. The rest of her days could have been filled with windows, carpet, concrete, and tile, and she would have been perfectly happy. Everything was falling apart now. The buildings and bridges were unstable. Life was flipped on its head.
Corinna eased herself down and rearranged her pack so she could lean against it while the fire got going. The fire organized as it burned. It move the sticks around to just where it wanted them, enveloped them, and then settled them some more. The wind dimmed the light for a moment and then it came back even stronger.
Up the hill, on the highway beyond her motorcycle, there was a big truck of fuel waiting for her. If she climbed up into the cab, she would find snacks left behind for any hungry travelers. Corinna would never take those snacks. She hated being dependent on that unnecessary generosity.
To her, it represented the worst of what the world had become.
People had once dominated everything. Their greed had been a symbol of their supremacy. Because the entire world had been conquered and divided up, it had been of critical importance to assert which assets belonged to each person. There had been no such thing as community wealth. Charity had been derided and avoided at any cost.
“And here I am, running off to do anything if Robby asks,” she whispered.
That wasn’t charity.
Corinna reached behind her and unclipped the pot from her pack. There was no reason to use her fresh water when there was a whole river right next to her. She took off her shoes and socks so she could wade into the water and scoop out a clear pot full.
Back at the fire, she arranged a place to set her pot to boil.
With a sigh, she sat back down. At the top of the bank, up in the woods, something was moving around. For years, Corinna had been wary of any sound in the night. Then, after hearing what a bear really sounded like, she had calmed down. A bear was hard to mistake. And, at least in her experience, other predators didn’t like fire. The sound she heard was probably a skunk or a raccoon.
Corinna leaned back and looked up toward the sky.
She was still preoccupied with Liam. There was no reason to keep denying it. He was likely never going to be happy, and she would never be completely happy while he was suffering. If something terrible happened to him, at least she would be able to mourn and heal. As it was, it seemed like a part of her was always close to panic because it felt like she should do something but there was nothing to do.
They used to have drugs for people like that.
Ty had once said that he didn’t think that antidepressants would be necessary anymore.
“People only needed those things because their problems were intangible,” he had said. “Now, our problems are things that we can point at or hold in our hands. The stress is real. Depression can’t grow in this environment.”
Ty couldn’t have been more wrong.
Having survived the end of the world multiple times, it seemed like everyone was depressed for a while. They had lived through the worst and it felt like everyone was sad to have made it.
Corinna laughed in the dark.
In a few generations, after humans finally forgot what they had once achieved, maybe people would be able to be happy.
She propped herself up on her arms to look at the pot of water. She dug in her pack for a sock and then used that to grab the hot handle. Sloshing the water around, the water sounded weird in the pot. It didn’t sizzle as it hit the hot metal sides.
Corinna found a flashlight.
Everything appeared normal, except for the fact that the water wasn’t boiling yet.
Frowning at the pot and the fire, Corinna dipped her finger in the water and jerked it back. It certainly felt like it was boiling.
Part Two:
Underway
Chapter 16: Ashley
“There it is,” Ashley said, pointing at the first orange mark.
Lisa was looking down.
“Aunt Lisa, are you even paying attention?”
Lisa looked back the way they had come.
Ashley followed her gaze, half expecting to see her father moving through the jungle. That morning he had seemed reluctant to let them go.
“I just… I need you to be careful, Ash,” he had said.
“I know, Dad. We’ll be fine. You went over my gear. You’re making Lisa go with me. What other precautions do you want to take?” Ashley had asked. She understood her father’s trepidation. He desperately wanted to come along with them, but he couldn’t. It was bad enough that he was all the way down here at the Outpost while Jim and Janelle were up in Gladstone. He wanted to keep all of them in one tiny little area, completely in view at all times.
“You’re so important. You’ll…” he had said. He had stopped himself from continuing the thought. Ashley was left to wonder what he intended to say.
“We have to go,” Lisa had said. “They won’t physically try to stop us from going, but if they see us they’re going to try to argue us into staying.”
Ashley and Robby had both nodded.
Now, Lisa was the one holding things up.
“Did you see these tracks?” Lisa asked. Ashley returned to her position. They both looked down as Lisa bent some leaves away to reveal the soft jungle floor. Ashley saw the prints.
“Those are from a dog,” Ashley said.
“Shhh!” Lisa whispered.
It was barely audible, but Ashley heard it. Someone’s voice on the wind was calling.
“Penny!”
“Shoot,” Ashley said. “She must have gotten away from Gloria. What do you want to do?”
“We keep going,” Lisa said. “If we find Penny, then we consider taking her back, right?”
“We can’t afford to be going back and forth. Summer is only so long and I don’t want to be hiking back in the winter.”
“I said we consider,” Lisa said.
Ashley nodded.
Lisa looked ready to march on, so Ashley pointed to the orange blaze.
“What do you think happened?” Ashley asked.
They stood on either side of a dirty tent. It looked like it had been there for quite some time.
“This isn’t Tim’s tent,” Lisa said. “He wouldn’t camp so soon after c
oming into the jungle, and this looks like it has been out in the weather. Let’s keep moving.”
Ashley nodded and continued on. It took her a second to locate the next mark and she paused to look at the leaves of one of the ferns.
“Not all of the plants are foreign,” she said. “We have these same ferns. I’m sure of it. If we caught them early enough in the season, we could eat the shoots from these.”
Lisa nodded.
“The trees look pretty familiar too.”
“They look familiar, but there are differences,” Ashley said. “This type of pine, for instance, is not native to North America.”
Lisa looked up at the tree and then shrugged.
“It’s not a jungle species, either. Calling this a jungle is really a misnomer. I can’t believe that there hasn’t been more effort to document and explore out here.”
“It’s not the Outpost’s primary goal.”
“Collecting knowledge about the world around us is not a primary goal?” Ashley asked. To her, it seemed like it should be the only goal.
“Not compared to reestablishing our species,” Lisa said. “Remember, our knowledge is not useful if there aren’t enough humans to continue on the species. Anything that might be considered dangerous to an individual capable of reproduction should not be…”
Ashley cut her off.
“I know the mandate, Aunt Lisa. Forgive me for valuing things other than my body’s ability to procreate. I have a brain attached to my womb.”
She stepped over a fallen tree and then held a branch aside for Lisa. Ahead, she saw the next orange mark. Ashley wondered if maybe they should be adding their own mark to the trees so they would know how to retreat if necessary.
“We’re here, aren’t we?” Lisa asked. “We’re here indulging your enormous brain. Do we have to engage in this fight again?”
“No,” Ashley said. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Lisa said. “We’re on the same side.”
“I know.”
They both paused again at a sound from up ahead. It was a dog barking.