by Anselmo, Ray
By Thanksgiving, they were dating. That was a revelation for her – she hadn’t quite given up on relationships, but she hadn’t been looking much, even before everything took the handbasket to the hot place. Serving as a placeholder for Pablo Amendola was fine. But she and Pat seemed to … fit. He jacked up her confidence and pointed out her successes. She showed him how to beat his despair and gave him someone to talk to. She told him male-pattern baldness wasn’t a deal-breaker, and he told her a daily dose of lithium wasn’t either.
He also kept taking her up to Sayler Beach when she wanted to check on the old homestead and get something from her house. That turned out to be a good thing for the doggos, who adored him, and for the town, which lost a couple of house roofs to a storm in January. They were able to string together enough tarps to cover those places until they could be fixed, before the internal damage got too bad. Camaraderie had been built on less.
She wasn’t sure what would happen to them when it was announced that Sayler Beach would become one of Santa Cruz’s outposts in the network of towns they were trying to build, along with reoccupying Half Moon Bay and Saratoga, and Lake Merced and the Presidio in the City. But before she could even ask, he told her, “I’m coming unless you tell me not to.” She did not tell him not to.
And today they were going. A hundred and thirty people had packed into two school buses for the trip up 101 – the path that she’d created and Rex Wray, a former Santa Clara construction foreman, had widened with a bulldozer a week before. A moving van was cued up behind the buses with all their personal items – they could use what they found up there in place of anything they left behind – and other supplies the settlement would need.
And she and Pat were in the Bayliner with Sandra, who’d broken up with the guy from the morgue and would be chief of Sayler Beach’s six-member Protective Service. Good – let her take care of any mountain lions. They’d zip up the coast first and start getting things ready for everyone else.
The world had gotten so small for a while, Kelly thought. For months it was mostly her little town. Then it got big again – world-sized, really. Now it would get small for her again … but now connected to the world as it hadn’t been since she was living there.
Turned out there were people in a lot of places besides Santa Cruz – Berkeley and Livermore were gathering people in as well, and some cities in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley. There was still a government in Washington, DC, though they admitted they couldn’t do much and were letting local governments take care of themselves, but let them know if you needed something and they’d try. Washington was keeping the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta going, working on a cure for the plague. Boston, Philadelphia, New York were smaller now, but still trucking.
And of course, Ireland. It must be something genetic, but almost half the population of County Derry had survived. This quickly got the disease named “the Derry Plague,” and explained why redheads were so prominent among those that remained. They weren’t the only group with limited immunity – people of Jewish, Mandinka and Hmong descent were also more likely to be unaffected – but they were the most prominent. Eileen, whose parents were from County Derry, said sardonically it was nice the Irish didn’t get the dirty end of the stick for once.
Kelly wasn’t going to worry about Ireland or Israel or Sierra Leone for now. She wasn’t even going to worry about Santa Cruz. In a few hours, she’d have her hands full with Sayler Beach again. A few after that, she’d have them full with everyone else coming to Sayler Beach. Her new constituency, Eileen had jokingly called it, only it wasn’t a joke, was it?
“Well, Mayor, are we ready to go?” Sandra patted Kelly’s shoulder.
Kelly rolled her eyes. “For the hundred and seventeenth time, please don’t call me that.”
“But it’s true. And it’s fun. And you’ve earned some kind of title.”
“Sandra, I’m still the same woman you found on the side of the road who freaked out because you and Rufus existed. Never lose track of that.”
“Okay, be humble. But I’m not going to stop calling you Mayor.”
“Gaahh. Please, something else, anything else.”
“She can call you ‘Sweet Cheeks’,” Pat said as he sat in the driver’s seat of the boat. “I do.”
“Okay, not anything else,” Kelly replied over Sandra’s laughter. “You two are going to be the death of me. Or maybe the life of me. I’m not sure which I dread more.”
“You love us, you know you do,” Pat commented, tousling Kelly’s hair.
He liked doing that, and she liked him doing it. She hadn’t been conscious of how ratty it had gotten due to the salt water and sweaty work until she got her first fresh-water shower her first night in Santa Cruz. It was in much better shape now, good for being stroked by a boyfriend. Running water … she’d miss that for the week or two it would take to get the plumbing running in Sayler Beach again. That and the electricity. There would be a town again, not just one person trying to keep a ghost town alive.
Ghost town – that fit a little too well. Every town in the world was wholly or partly a ghost town now. Washington was estimating that maybe forty million people had survived the first two weeks of the plague. Half a percent of the world’s population – and that was an optimistic guess. No one knew what had caused it (the CDC were working on it day and night), but it did its work quite comprehensively. Leaving mostly ghosts behind.
She had her ghosts, that was certain. Ganj and LaSheba and Rav and Sarah and Bilbo and poor Vivi Fifi. Pablo. Chandra. The Matchicks and Ashcrofts and Molinaros and Harrings. Her family in Oklahoma – she still hadn’t heard anything about them, and maybe never would. She would never forget any of them. But now she had new friends, and new family, and new work to do. The ghosts would have to fend for themselves, just like she had.
The driver of the lead school bus honked her horn. “You ready to go?” Sandra asked. Kelly nodded, and Sandra waved a green flag. Start of the race. Pat, having already untied the Bayliner from the wharf, turned the ignition switch and pulled the boat away.
Kelly Sweeney smiled, sat back and pulled her hat down over her forehead. The crisis was over. She planned to relax before the next one hit.
THE END
About the Author
Ray Anselmo lives with his wife, son, cats and neuroses in Stockton, California. LAST is his 22nd book and his fourth post-apocalyptic tale. You can also check out:
The Glory of a King: a romantic novella
The Slave Auction (Book One of the Scotia Saga)
The Irrational War (Book Two of the Scotia Saga)
All of Ray’s books are available via Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. He also works as an editor and proofreader, and can do cover design in a pinch, if you’re looking for something along those lines.
If you’d like to find out more about Million Dreams Press, check out our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/Million.Dreams.Press. If you’d like to find out more about Ray Anselmo, you can find him on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ray.anselmo. And if you want to receive MDP’s monthly newsletter and keep up on all the new releases, just e-mail [email protected] and we’ll add you to the list!