by LeRoy Clary
She quietly followed me, wearing a slight scowl. It was impossible to tell who or what it was directed at. I decided it couldn’t be directed at me. I was just trying to help and keep us safe.
We traveled up on the higher ground where we had more of a view, then down the other side of the hill. We went quickly at first, then slowed as we neared where I felt the shots had been fired. There was less snow and we moved under the trees, heading in the general direction of the Sauk River. There were no bridges or crossings I was aware of in that direction, so I assumed the three who were searching for us were on our side, between the river and the mountains. That was a narrow stretch to search.
We moved undercover and watched carefully ahead, especially when we got nearer to the river. Sue’s hand lightly touched my elbow. I pulled to a stop and she leaned closer. I bent down to put my ear next to her mouth. She mouthed softly, “I heard talking.”
I hadn’t, but her ears were probably better than mine. An online site I had frequented said that most adults begin losing their hearing at about age sixteen and there were high-pitched apps for cell phone ringers that supposedly adults over thirty couldn’t hear. All that didn’t really count, but it flashed through my mind because what can be learned online was infinite. I missed it almost as much as having food delivered.
What counted was that Sue had heard voices. There were people nearby, friends or enemies. There was no way to discriminate. We moved at the pace of an injured snail. Through the trees, near the river’s bank, we saw movement. It was on the other side of the river, which was a surprise. The river was running low, the riverbed covered with rocks, but it was cold water, water that had been snow or ice hours earlier.
We moved closer and perched behind a huge cedar stump. That three had probably been cut for lumber a century ago.
Five men wearing black leather jackets covered with patches stood over three prone bodies. Beyond, at the side of the road were motorcycles. Big ones. Probably Harleys or those made by other companies trying to imitate them. At least two of the motorcycles had rifle scabbards attached, and all five men held cans of what I assumed were beer in their left hands, keeping their right hands free for their guns.
One biker held three scoped rifles by their barrels in his left hand, the butts dragging on the ground when he moved. Probably all three belonged to the men who had been hunting us at the mouth of the tunnel earlier. They seemed unconcerned about the three bodies. One laughed and pounded the shoulder of another. The third searched the dead men and came up empty, from what I saw.
After tossing the empty beer cans aside, they went to their bikes, fired them up and rode away. The noise was a deep growl that vibrated the nearby ground, or so it seemed. The engine noise didn’t carry in the thick forest like the crack of a rifle shot did. From now on, we’d have to be aware of the low growl, and the men on the motorcycles.
When they were gone, Sue said, “We need to see if they left anything for us.”
“The river is just above freezing.”
“And only knee-deep. We can build a fire and put on dry socks when we get back to the mine. Those three won’t be returning and the bikers, if they heard the shotgun, probably think those men were responsible for waking them last night with their rifles. If there are other survivors in the area, they are probably hiding from the bikers right now, so it’s as safe as it gets these days.”
Sue was a master at combining facts and coming to instant conclusions. And she was right. With a last look around to make sure the way was clear, we rushed across the fifty-foot expanse of cold, knee-deep water. Ignoring the stinging pain in our feet and ankles, we pulled to a stop on the far bank near the first dead man.
Darkening blood showed where the bullet had entered the man’s chest. I recognized him and his camouflage clothing, now that we were close enough to see details. It was one of the three who had searched for our tunnel.
“Stand back,” I ordered as my hands patted his pockets and waist. Sue didn’t need to be exposed to seeing death any more than she had been, and there was always the threat of contamination or infection of the flu. Touching a person might transmit it to me. Breathing the air near him might. I held my breath and searched quickly.
I didn’t believe he was infected, or he would look sick. When I found nothing, I looked up into her unemotional brown face and shrugged before moving on to the next. AT first, there was nothing of interest, but when I started to stand to move to the last body, a bulge near his ankle caught my attention.
I pulled his pants leg up and found a small Guardian 32 ACP pistol in a holster, one meant to be a hideaway gun, or for a small woman to use. It was a thirty-two caliber, I assumed from the 32 ACP stamped on the side of the barrel. Slightly larger diameter shells than my twenty-two, but not by too much. The short barrel told me it was probably accurate for twenty feet, but I was not familiar with many guns and could be wrong.
When I looked up, Sue had the same expression my old dog had worn when I forgot to feed him. I tossed the Guardian semi-automatic to her while I searched the last man. He had a roll of hundreds in his front pocket, probably three or four thousand dollars. I put them back. Even the bikers hadn’t wanted the money. It was useless in our post-pandemic world.
I supposed they would have been good to use to start kindling burning for our fires. The thought of the dead man stealing the money that was now worthless seemed almost funny. Three weeks ago, it made sense. Today it was a cruel joke. Could the dead man have been so stupid? A single can of beef stew was worth more than all those bills in the post-flu world. It firmly indicated that not only the smart survived. At least, to date. I suspected that would soon change when instead of fighting the flu, people fought each other.
To her credit, Sue examined the handgun and kept her finger well away from the trigger. My brief examination hadn’t revealed a safety. Like many similar handguns, it didn’t have one. The shooter simply pulled the trigger back until it fired. That was both good and bad in my opinion. I always worried about accidental firings, which are rare but do happen. I also worried about needing to pull and shoot a gun quickly to save my life and couldn’t do it. Fumbling for a safety when an instantaneous shot was required could cost a life. Mine.
The third man had a nine-millimeter Glock in the kind of nylon holster used by law enforcement. I pulled the Velcro opening for the belt with the sound of plastic ripping and worked it free from his limp body. The left side held a smaller holster with a pair of extra clips.
My little twenty-two was good for low noise. It wouldn’t stop a charging man, or even slow some down who were intent on killing me unless I made a headshot. Against my better judgment, I strapped the semiautomatic on and adjusted it as I reconsidered my choices. What I wanted was a light weapon that fit easily into a holster. One that made no noise but could take down a moose. Oh, yes, it also needed a scope because I hadn’t fired more than three guns in my life. Any idiot could place crosshairs on a target and pull the trigger, so that’s what I needed. My hand touched the exposed handle of the gun I now wore, and my mind cursed because it lacked my perceived needs.
His pocket held a jackknife. We had plenty of knives. I tossed it aside. In the end, we left the bodies lying there for the scavengers to eat. They had come to kill us, and I had no regrets in walking away. I followed Sue back across the river and into the trees, retracing our footsteps and feeling safer than at any time after the shotgun blast. Both of us were armed. The three searching for us were dead—and we hadn’t killed them.
We moved slowly, keeping watch ahead, using the same footprints we’d made coming the other way when possible and hoping for either more snow or another warm day to melt them away. As it was, the trail we left was like a giant arrow pointing to us. Additional vigilance for a day or two would be needed.
At the tunnel, we ate a southwestern flavored soup that was almost too spicy. Instead of remaining in what we called our “living room” I chose to remain near the entrance of the mine, wa
tching the clearing, just in case.
Sue joined me. She said, “I never thought my life would come to this.”
Not knowing exactly what she meant by the statement, I hesitantly asked, “Come to what?”
“Living in a hole like a friggin rabbit.”
“A rabbit?”
“We’re in a rabbit hole. We will dart outside and grab a little food, then hop back into our hole again, while hoping a hawk does not swoop down and attack when we’re outside. I know we’re safer here than most people and all that stuff you’re about to tell me, but we may as well have cottontails on our butts.”
I saw her point. Said nothing. There was no way to change what we did.
She sighed, then added, “You know what the real problem is?” Then, she answered her own question before I could. “The problem is that all those little bunnies eventually get snatched by eagles, or coyotes, or foxes, or cats. Everything feeds off rabbits. They’re like the potato chips of the animal world. Other animals snack on them and there are never any old rabbits.”
There was no humor in her voice. While part of what she said struck me as funny, she hadn’t intended it that way and I managed to keep any humor from my voice as I said, “What are you trying to tell me?”
“As good as this place is for us for now, we’re just like rabbits. We’re going to be seen one day, someone will see our tracks in the snow, or someone will accidentally find us. Today, tomorrow, or the day after. Maybe we’ll shoot at something and draw them in. Or we’ll go in search of food or medicine, or for a pair of dry socks. Which reminds me, we need to carry that wolf body outside unless you plan to eat it or let it rot where it is.”
“What else are you really trying to say?” I asked, fairly sure the answer wouldn’t be to my liking. “Stop talking in circles like I’m smart enough to understand what you mean.”
She paused with a dreamy expression as her eyes went blank. “This is a good hideout for now. But only for now. Another day or two. What are our long-term plans? Maybe I should be asking what yours are and see if they include me.”
“Of course, they include you.” The answer spilled from my lips. Going on without the girl was hard to conceive. For the first time in years, I had a friend. Not a girlfriend, but a friend who I could talk to, express my dreams and fears, and feel safe around.
She shook her head sadly. “From your viewpoint, your plans include me, and for that I thank you. From my viewpoint, I have to decide whether to stay with you, go with someone else, or move on alone.”
My mouth wouldn’t work. I’d assumed a lot of things, and in that instant, I realized how wrong making assumptions can be. My social skills hadn’t improved a bit.
CHAPTER FOUR
The idea that Sue might not accompany me in the future was a lot like a spring thunderbolt that seemed to come from nowhere. I turned to her. “What do you want?”
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I want things to go back to normal. They won’t, I know that. But other than living minute to minute and doing a wonderful job of it, you have told me nothing about your future plan.”
“It’s only been two weeks,” I protested. “We’re been together for two days, depending on how you count them. You can’t expect me to have it all figured out or share it with you.”
She didn’t look at me. Her attention was somewhere inside her mind. “Fair enough. Let’s talk. What are your short-term plans? I mean, if you could safely leave here and do something in the world as it is, what would you do?”
“Seriously?” The word came out unintended. It was a stall, so I didn’t have to answer before thinking it over. She ignored it, and waited, her eyes now centered on mine. I thought quickly. “I would go find a laptop.”
She giggled.
“No, I mean it. Computers are one thing I know. They’re my friends.”
“What Internet would you connect it to? And where would you plug it in?”
“I’ve been thinking.”
She grinned and motioned for me to continue making a fool of myself. I plunged ahead, “I read somewhere that an idle server uses only about as much power as in one of those flat batteries the size of a nickel, you know the ones?” At her nod, I went on, “For a month, maybe more, the servers maintain their memory after the power goes. Besides, a lot of them are connected to battery backups of one sort or another and will last longer. I don’t know how long, but longer. Even then, most do not lose their memory, they just shut down.”
“Missing your video games?” she teased.
I was getting a little angry. She had asked me to share my thoughts and now she was making fun of me. “Listen, this flu may not be a worldwide thing. Or others may be holed up and trying to contact survivors via the internet. There might be a sanctuary city and we could go there. Besides, they contain a lot of knowledge. There might even be a cure for the human blight.”
I had her interest.
She said, “Your laptop needs power.”
“I had a sleeve to carry my old tablet in. The sleeve was a poor excuse for a solar panel, but a full day in the sun charged it to half. There must be better ones. Or maybe connecting it to one of those solar panels on the roofs of houses will charge it.”
She said with cautious optimism, “Wi-Fi? Where you gonna get it?”
“Maybe the cell phone grid is still working, and I can use a phone as a hotspot. Or a sat phone if we can find one and get a signal from a satellite. I’m sure they are still up there circling the Earth.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and made a phony scowl, but she was still interested. “Then you will call people in England and tell them to come to rescue us? Tell them where we are?”
“No, I had another idea. Most big depositories of digital information have backups for power and access. Many are self-repairing. Imagine how much easier it would be if we could download a few eBooks on how to survive, what to eat, how to trap animals in the northwest, and how to make shelters. If I could log in to one of them and find the right information, it would make our lives so much easier.”
“You know what?”
I shook my head.
“You’re a stupid geek who only looks at the world through a dumb-ass computer screen. You look like a geek and you think like one.”
Offended, I snapped, “You don’t think my plan will work? Or that information won’t make our lives much easier if I’m successful?”
“This sort of thing is why you need to talk to me, Bill. Tell me about your ideas. Think of all the obstacles you’re going to have to climb over to use a laptop and access data behind a firewall if it is still there. That is if you’re a genius that can get past their firewalls. Yes, I know a little about computers.”
“It will work,” I persisted. “I’m pretty good with a computer.”
“Just stumble on any one of those steps and it will prevent you from succeeding. While you think you’re a master gamer or guru, trying to read a database with all the protections money can buy will be difficult or impossible, and you know it. They’re programmed by the best in the world to keep people like you and me out of them.”
“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Even now, their batteries are running down, information is becoming harder to reach and download. You asked for my plan and that was it. Unfortunately, we need to do it quickly. The window of time is shrinking.”
She sadly shook her head from side to side slowly as if correcting an errant second-grader. “Or . . . we could just visit my school library and take the books we need, you silly geek.”
I was stunned.
She was right. It was a perfect answer, right there in front of me. She was right, I was a geek and had taken a simple problem with a simple solution and expanded it to fit our lives before the fall of civilization. Her nearby school or the city library held all the information I required and taking a book or three with me made it portable information I could access anywhere.
As my mind went to work, it filled in more blan
ks and made more suggestions, the first of which was where we were located and the sort of people who had lived here at the very edge of the mountains. They avoided city life in all ways, including their reading material. It was the exact information we required.
Most of the local residents had fished and hunted. They lived in what I called “the end of the road” not because they had to, but because they wanted to. Almost every home in Darrington would have a gun or even several. And fishing poles with lures. And books on the first residents to settle here, others describing useful local plants, and how to successfully hunt, preserve food, and a hundred other useful things we could put to use.
It was all right there in front of me, easily accessed without a sat phone or hotspot for a laptop I didn’t own or have electricity to provide. The only problem was getting into the houses to search for what we wanted when others were breaking in and stealing food, sleeping bags, and warm clothing—exactly like we had done at the ski-cabin.
A silence followed. Sue appeared restrained and perhaps ashamed at her outbursts and simple solutions to problems I’d muddled over for a week. I’d thought myself so advanced and capable of reaching the great digital storehouses. Yes, there would have been problems, but in the back of my mind, I was fairly certain it never would have worked. I was a gamer, not a hacker.
All that cutting-edge technology and a top of the line laptop was surpassed in today’s world by a tattered backpack filled with a few well-chosen books. Oddly, I didn’t feel stupid or upstaged. I felt proud that the girl who was sharing my life who had contributed significantly.
“Sue?” I asked.
“Bill?” she used the same tone but refused to look at me as if ashamed of either her or me. I couldn’t tell which.
“Thank you,” I said simply. “My plan may have worked. At least, I like to think it would have. Yours is better.”
“Really?” she asked in a brighter voice.
“Absolutely. I made the entire thing so complicated it would have taxed my knowledge to the limit when the right answer was right there in front of me. We are changing our plans and going on a book search.”