Last Survivors 01 - Life as We Knew It

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

  More, probably. Sometimes a day goes by and I realize I haven't thought about him at all.

  June 21

  It's dawn and I'm writing now because I just woke up from a nightmare and it's too late to go back to sleep and too early to get out of bed.

  The whole day was just one of those days. It's so hot, over 90 every day for the past week and the nights aren't much cooler. Half the time the electricity comes on in the middle of the night, and it never stays on much more than an hour, so the house barely cools down even with the central air on. Mom actually got a letter from the electric company last week apologizing for the inconvenience. Mom says that's the first time a utility company has ever apologized to her.

  The best part of every day is swimming at the pond. When I'm in the water I feel as though nothing bad has happened. I think about the fish, how they don't know what's going on. Their world is unchanged. Actually it's probably better now to be a tuna or a sardine or a salmon. Less chance of ending up as somebody's lunch.

  The mosquitoes are getting worse or maybe people are just more worried about West Nile, but there are fewer people at the pond. This would be good for Dan and me except Karen and Emily from the swim team have started swimming at the pond the same time we're there.

  It makes the swimming more fun, since we race and offer advice and play really vicious games of swim tag, but it makes the after-swimming a lot less fun, since Dan and I can't just escape into the woods for a little private time.

  I don't know why Karen and Emily are showing up then, if it's a coincidence or if Dan told them that's when we swim.

  I miss the kissing. I miss the ridiculous sensation of having a boyfriend and being on a date. I wonder if I'll ever have a real date again. Everything's closed: the restaurants and movie theaters and the skating rink. Dan may have his license, but nobody just drives anymore, and he lives on the other end of town.

  This is all just dumb. But I guess it's one reason why I had my nightmare.

  Peter showed up this evening. He brought us a jar of mixed nuts. Mom stared at it like it was a five-course Thanksgiving dinner: turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and sweet potatoes and string beans and salad and soup and pumpkin pie. Or maybe that's what I thought when I saw the jar.

  "I'm allergic to peanuts," Peter said, almost apologetically. "Someone gave me these months ago, and it's been sitting in my cupboard."

  Mom invited him to stay for dinner, and in his honor she made quite the feast. She took a can of chicken and put some golden raisins in it and it almost passed for chicken salad, if you think of chicken salad being canned chicken and golden raisins. She also served beets and string beans with pearl onions. For dessert we each had a fig and a date.

  "This is as close to a date as I'm getting," I said and everyone laughed a little too long.

  When Mom put out the string beans and pearl onions, Jonny asked if it was Christmas. I have to admit, the onions seemed like overkill to me, too. I noticed Mom didn't eat very much of anything and neither did Peter, although he pretended like it was the best meal he'd ever had. That left more food for Matt and Jonny and me and we certainly ate it all.

  Peter always brings death with him, along with spinach or nuts. He said he'd seen 20 cases of West Nile during the week and five deaths from it. He also said two people had died from food allergies.

  "They're so hungry they're taking their chances eating foods they're seriously allergic to," he said.

  He and Mom went outside after supper and sat on the swing. I could hear murmured conversation from them, but I didn't try to eavesdrop. It must be horrible to be a doctor now. Before Peter cured people. Now they just die.

  Peter left before sunset. He bikes over and with the streetlights gone, it's dangerous to be out after dark. Besides, with no electricity, everyone pretty much goes to bed once the sun sets.

  "We're keeping farmer's hours now," Mom says. She's stopped reminding us we can use our flashlights only to get undressed and into bed. We're all starting to sense how important our supply of batteries is.

  Maybe it was because of the swimming and maybe it was because of my date joke, but I dreamed that Dan and I were on a real date. He picked me up at the house, and he gave me a corsage, and we got in a car and drove to an amusement park.

  We had a wonderful time. We rode the merry-go-round and the Ferris wheel and we were on this amazing roller coaster that went down at 100 miles an hour, only I wasn't scared, I loved it, and as we flew down, we kissed. It was incredibly exciting.

  "I'm hungry," I said, and the dream shifted and Dan wasn't there anymore. I was in a tent and it had long tables overloaded with food. There was so much to choose from, southern fried chicken and real tuna salad and pizza and vegetables and fruit. Oranges the size of grapefruits. Even ice cream.

  I decided to have a hot dog with all the trimmings. I slathered mustard and ketchup and relish and sauerkraut and chopped onions all over it. I was just about to take a bite when I heard someone say, "You can't eat until you pay."

  I turned around and saw there was a cashier. I found my pocketbook and went to give her the money, when I realized the cashier was Becky.

  "You can't pay with money," she said. "This is Heaven and you have to die before you can eat the hot dog."

  I looked around the tent some more. Everyone there was someone I've known who's died, like Mr. Nesbitt or Grandpa or Mom's grandparents or my seventh-grade math teacher, Mr. Dawkes. Angels were serving the food. Even Becky was wearing white and had wings.

  "I really want the hot dog," I said. "But I don't want to die."

  "You can't always get what you want," Becky said.

  "Don't be careless," Mr. Dawkes said, which was what he always said when he'd hand back a test and I'd made a lot of careless mistakes. Which was really pretty funny, since he died when he ran through a red light on Washington Avenue.

  I remember begging for the hot dog and Becky taking it away from me and eating it herself. I never wanted anything as much as I wanted that hot dog.

  I woke up with my throat burning and a taste of bile in my mouth. I don't even like hot dogs all that much.

  What I'd really love are pancakes, the kind Mom used to make for special occasions. Pancakes with butter and hot maple syrup. Now that I think about it, we have pancake mix and maple syrup. I wonder if we really could have pancakes. I wonder if waking up alive is enough of a special occasion.

  When Mom gets up, I'll ask her about the pancakes, but not about what constitutes a special occasion. I think Mom wants us to think we'll wake up every morning for years to come.

  Maybe Mom's right. It's a beautiful sunrise. We are all still alive, and I'm really not ready for Heaven. Not as long as I can swim in Miller's Pond and go on make-believe dates with Dan and dream about the possibility of eating pancakes slathered in maple syrup.

  June 22

  The best day in ages.

  For starters, Mom made pancakes. Okay, they weren't pancakes as we all remembered them, but close enough. Water instead of milk, dried egg whites instead of eggs (which made them fluffier and less heavy), no butter, but lots of maple syrup.

  We loved them. Mom smiled like I haven't seen her smile in weeks. Jonny asked for seconds, and Mom made them for him, for all of us, really, since we ate like pigs. Mom sent Matt to get Mrs. Nesbitt so she got to eat pancakes, also.

  It was amazing not to feel hungry and not to crave more or different.

  Then after I'd fully digested (Mom insisted on that) I went to the pond. Dan was already there, and so was Emily, but Karen didn't show up. The day was a little grayish, but still murky and humid and hot, and the water felt great. We swam and raced and had a good time, and then, oh happy day, Emily had to leave to do something back at her house, so Dan and I were alone. (Okay, there were a half dozen other people at the pond, but we didn't know them so we were alone in that way.)

  We continued to swim for a while longer, and then we got out of the water, toweled off (not the sort of
day where you dry yourself off in the sun), and took a little walk through the woods surrounding the pond.

  It was wonderful. We held hands, we hugged, we kissed. We talked, too, and sometimes we didn't do anything, just stood quietly and let the trees and the birds surround us.

  Underneath everything, I wonder if Dan would even know I was around if things were normal. Sure he was nice to me at school and at practice sessions, but there's a big difference between saying I have a good crawl stroke and holding me tight in the forest while we kiss.

  If anybody ever reads this diary, I will absolutely die.

  Dan walked me back home, but he didn't come in. It was lunchtime, and there's an unspoken understanding that you don't drop in at mealtimes (Peter doesn't seem to understand this, but he always brings food).

  When I went into the kitchen, there was a strange, pleasant smell that I couldn't quite identify, and then I saw Mom punching a lumpy white thing. She was positively grinning as she punched.

  "I'm baking bread," she said. "The pancakes made me think about just what we have, and I remembered buying yeast. I put it in the fridge and I forgot about it, but there it was. I'm using water instead of milk, but that's okay. We're going to have fresh baked bread."

  "You're kidding," I said. It seemed too good to be true.

  "I have enough yeast for six loaves," Mom said. "I'm baking two today, one for us, and a half loaf for Mrs. Nesbitt and a half for Peter. As soon as we're finished with our loaf, I'll bake another. There's no point holding off. We'll eat bread for as long as we can. And then I'll check out non-yeast recipes and we'll have something breadish until I run out of flour. I just wish I'd thought of it sooner."

  "We can save some of it for the fall," I said. "After Jonny and I get back from Springfield."

  And just because it was that sort of day, as soon as I said it, the phone rang. It's been so long since I heard that sound, I practically had a heart attack. I answered the phone, and it was Dad. Jonny and Matt were at the park, so they didn't get to talk with him, but I did.

  It was so great hearing his voice. He's fine and Lisa is fine and she saw her obstetrician and the baby is fine. Dad says he tries our number and Grandma's and Lisa's parents' three times a day. He spoke to Grandma a couple of days ago and she's fine. Lisa reached her parents about a week ago, and they were okay, also.

  He said he can't wait to see us and he was sure we'd be able to manage. Springfield hasn't had any food deliveries in the past couple of weeks, but he and Lisa had stocked up on stuff when all this first happened, and they have some friends who've left Springfield to go south and let them have all their canned goods and boxed foods. Besides, he'd heard that the local farmers were planting crops and that some trucks were on the roads again and things couldn't stay this way forever.

  Just hearing Dad say all that and smelling bread in the kitchen made me feel a lot more optimistic.

  Mom was so proud when the loaves came out of the oven. They were golden brown and tasted much better than store-bought bread. Matt biked over to Mrs. Nesbitt's and to Peter's office and gave them their goodies.

  We had peanut butter and jelly on fresh baked bread for supper tonight. Open-faced sandwiches because we sliced the bread so thick.

  Mom says if we keep eating like this we'll end up fat and malnourished, but I don't care. It was wonderful.

  Then, because when good things happen they just keep on happening, we had electricity and it came on at 7 PM, a time when we could actually use it. And it stayed on for 3 whole hours.

  Mom did three loads of laundry and got two of them dry. I vacuumed the whole house. We ran all the dishes through the dishwasher. We ran the central air and cooled the house off. Just for the hell of it, Matt toasted a slice of bread and we all nibbled on it. I'd forgotten how great toast is: crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.

  A couple of days ago, Matt had gone into the attic and brought down a real old black-and-white TV set with a built-in antenna. Mom says the antennas were called rabbit ears, which I think is pretty silly.

  With the electricity on, we turned on the TV set, and got two stations. We can't get any TV reception on our other sets—our cable reception is completely gone.

  Just seeing a picture on TV was exciting. One station was religious. The other station showed reruns of Seinfeld and Friends. Guess which station we watched!

  Watching sitcoms was like eating toast. Two months ago, it was so much a part of my life I didn't even notice it. But now it feels like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy and the Wizard of Oz all rolled into one.

  We have clean sheets to sleep on, a clean house, clean clothes, clean dishes. We spent the evening laughing. It wasn't 90 degrees in the house when we went to bed. We aren't hungry. We're not worried about Dad. I know what it feels like to be kissed by a boy.

  If I could, I would relive this day over and over. I can't imagine a more perfect one.

  June 24

  I'm so angry at Mom I could scream. And it doesn't help that she's as mad at me as I am at her.

  The day started out great, too. The sun was shining, perfect swimming weather. There was enough bread left for each of us to have a slice for breakfast. Mom brought in a few strawberries from the garden, and we each had two.

  I went to the pond and I didn't even mind that Karen and Emily were there. We swam, we raced, we had fun.

  I guess they've figured out something's going on with Dan and me, because when we got out of the pond, they made themselves scarce. Dan and I took our walk in the woods. When we're together like that, I feel as though everything is going to work out. I like to think I help him feel that way, also.

  Dan walked me home and we ran into Mom in the drive-way. "I'm off to get gas," she said. "Dan, would you like a lift into town?"

  Dan said yes, and I asked if I could go, too. Mom said sure. We'd be picking up Mrs. Nesbitt, also. She wanted to go to the library.

  There are two gas stations in town that still have gas. The way it works is you get in line and then you prepay. It's $12 a gallon, or $35 for 3 gallons, exact change only, and a maximum of 3 gallons. It usually takes about an hour to get the gas, and then you drive to the other gas station and get 3 gallons there. Then if you have the time and the money, you go back to the first gas station and start all over again.

  So while Mom is waiting in line, there's plenty of time to go to the library or do anything else you want to do. A lot of times Mom drops Matt and Jonny off at the park, and they find a pickup game of baseball, while Mom does the gas lines. But since we were all sure it was going to rain, they decided to skip the trip, so there was room for Mrs. Nesbitt and Dan and me.

  Mom got into the gas line, and Mrs. Nesbitt, Dan, and I walked over to the library. There's very little that's still open in town, so the library has gotten real popular. Of course it's not the same way it used to be, either. With no electricity, things are pretty dark, and they can't scan the books, so you're on an honor system. Four books to a customer, and they trust you to return them as soon as you can.

  We have lots of books at home, but Mom's been urging Matt and Jonny and me to use the library as much as possible. I guess she's afraid it won't stay open that much longer.

  We all found books to take out. I put Mrs. Nesbitt's and my books in my book bag. Dan and I kissed in the stacks, and then when we left the library, he started walking toward his home and Mrs. Nesbitt and I started back to the gas station to keep Mom company while she waited.

  Only, as we were walking, we saw a long line in the elementary school playground. There were maybe 50 people in the line, and we noticed a couple of state troopers standing around, making sure people stayed in place.

  I ran over to see what was going on. "They're giving away food," a man told me. "One bag per household."

  I waved Mrs. Nesbitt over and got her a place in the line. "I'm going to get Dan," I told her. "We'll meet you back here."

  So I ran, and I do mean ran, toward Dan's home.
It didn't take me long to find him and explain what was going on. We both ran back to the playground. By the time we got there, Mrs. Nesbitt was about 20 people ahead of us. I knew we couldn't just cut in line and join her, but we yelled so she knew we were there.

  It wasn't bad in the line, maybe because the troopers saw to it that we behaved ourselves. Any kids who might have been whining played with the slides and swings instead and it was fun watching them have a good time. We were all excited about getting food, even if we didn't know what exactly to expect. It kind of felt like Christmas shopping.

  Every now and again one of the troopers would explain the rules to us. One bag per household. All the bags were identical. Make any trouble and no bag. No cost but a thank-you would be appreciated.

  Even when it began to rain, we didn't mind. It was a gentle summertime kind of rain, and since it's so humid, we hoped that the rain would clear things up and the weather would turn nice again.

  Dan and I held hands and giggled and enjoyed being together. We edged forward and we cheered when Mrs. Nesbitt finally got into the school. We cheered again when she emerged carrying a bag.

  We finally got in ourselves. There were other troopers in the school, clearly guarding the bags. It was scary seeing them with real guns.

  But everyone was very well behaved. When you got to the front of the line, you had to show an ID that had your address on it. Luckily, Dan and I both had our library cards with us. We were each handed a plastic bag, and told to leave, which we did. When we walked out, we saw the troopers were telling people not to get in line; the supplies were running out.

  We found Mrs. Nesbitt standing just outside the playground. "There's rice," she said. "And beans and all kinds of goodies."

  I was so excited that I flat-out kissed Dan right in front of Mrs. Nesbitt. Not that she seemed shocked. Dan gave me a hug and said good-bye. "My mom is going to be so happy," he said, which pretty much summed it up.