Lucky

by Sage du Toit

  She was bored so she played with some of the things. She ended up making a page full of hearts and flowers around Tom’s name. She used the crimping tool to make some of the hearts look broken, because that was how she felt, Brokenhearted. She missed Tom.

  15 December 2020 N-Day +158 days

  Atlanta, GA

  The rain had stopped during the night so she started out bright and early the next day. The air seemed colder and the ground was still very wet. She hadn’t gotten very far when she ran into a creek that was swollen from the rain the day before. She got out her map and saw the creek ran for a long way both directions and she would need to back track and go north. The ground was very soggy from the rains and she accidentally slipped in the mud and slid down a muddy hill, hitting the bottom hard. When she reached the road, she decided she would stay on it and just keep a watchful eye out. She hadn’t seen or heard any cars since she crossed that bridge.

  She checked her map again and saw she didn’t have that far to get to Douglasville. She decided to stay on the back roads, it would be a little more walking but she didn’t want to risk walking on the freeway. The ground was saturated everywhere and there were a lot of ponds and creeks in this area, in some areas it was even coming up over the banks.

  She referred to her map often, checking the road names against it and gauging how far she was. She stopped a few times and checked places for food and water. She was down to her canteen and still didn’t find any food. She wondered who had looted all of the food. It seemed like the looters were different than what she saw in Atlanta. They didn’t seem to be demolishing the places they looted compared to the ones she saw in Atlanta.

  She had finally made it to the outskirts of Douglasville, it was midafternoon and she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do from here. Douglasville had been their goal to get out of Atlanta. Now she needed to set a new goal. Texas.

  She went into a Pizza Hut that was sitting on the outskirts and did a quick search through. Not even a packet of parmesan. She spread her map of Georgia out on the table and next to it the map of Alabama. She knew she needed to head west and then south and to avoid the major cities. She didn’t want to deal with another Atlanta, especially on her own. She felt lost and miserable. Unsure of what to do. She decided she would just head southwest out of the city and try to find a place for the night. It was too wet to sleep outside, especially in the cold and wet with no tent or sleeping bag.

  There were often cars stopped in the middle or along the roads and she had taken a habit of looking into them as she passed, hoping that someone might have a lunch kit or bags of groceries in the car. Sam walked southwest from Douglasville until late afternoon and then started looking for a place. She found a small cookie cutter neighborhood and followed the roads to the back of the subdivision. She had seen signs of looting and was looking for a place that would at least be empty of bodies, didn’t matter if it had been looted she just needed a place to sleep and hopefully boil some water.

  She got to the end of the road and she saw there was one house on the end with only one neighbor. The windows and doors were all closed on the house and there wasn’t a car in the driveway. Maybe she would get lucky and this house would be clean. She approached the house carefully and tried the front door, it was locked. There was a big wooden privacy fence going around the back yard, too big for her to climb, she walked around the house and found a gate to the backyard. The back sliding glass door had been busted and there was glass everywhere. Well the house was probably looted, but if they had to break in that way maybe it was clean.

  ✽✽✽

  21 December 2020 (Early evening-continued)

  Douglasville, GA

  When Sam was done with her beans she took the anemometer/temperature gauge and held it out the vent flap. She brought it back in and the temperature showed twenty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. She stirred the pot to see how many of the beans were left. Too much for just a few small plastic bowls. She remembered seeing a case of canning jars in the cat lady’s kitchen. She checked her watch and she still had some time before Mew needed another feeding.

  She dressed warm in multiple layers and doubled her gloves up too. She just had to run next door but she was already cold enough as is. She stepped out the front door and looked around. Everything was white, a thick layer of snow about three inches deep. At least Sam thought it was thick. It rarely snowed in Texas where she was from and this was the most snow she had seen in her life. It was beautiful and cold.

  She looked up in the tree to see if the squirrel was out but he must have been burrowed deep in his nest. She ran over to the house next door and quickly went into the kitchen. The case of canning jars was pushed to the back under the sink. She pulled them out and checked them over to make sure she wasn’t bringing broken jars back to the house.

  When she opened the door and checked again before crossing back to her house she froze. There was a body lying in the middle of the street. It wasn’t there before...where had it come from? She looked to see if there was anyone else outside and then ran back home with the jars. She shut the door behind her and then thought about the person laying in the road.

  They needed help but what if the person was dangerous. What if it was a trap to lure her out. She considered if it had been a trap they probably would have attacked her or shot at her as she ran across to her house. And now she had left obvious footprints in the snow that she was here.

  She put the canning jars in her room and grabbed two thick blankets. She went back to the door and looked out, waiting to see if there was any movement. Even the body was laying immobile. She used the blanket to swish over the snow and erase her footprints, just leaving a soft swirl that blended in. She worked her way over to the neighbors and then walking backward toward the body she erased her prints as she went.

  She knelt down next to the body and thought it was probably a man by the shape. She stuck her finger under his collar and felt for a pulse. It was weak but it was there, his body was freezing cold. She covered him with the second blanket and lifted him up from the front and picked him up on her shoulders in a fireman’s carry, making sure the blanket was still over him. She was immediately reminded of Tom, but this guy was much lighter. She used the other blanket to erase her footprints as she slowly made her way backward to her door.

  Once inside, with the door shut and locked she debated where to take him. She would have to warm him up but she didn’t really want him in her room. She decided she would take him there for now and she could move him to the boy’s room once he was not on the brink of death. Still in the fireman's carry she entered her room and placed him on top of the covers on the side of the bed closest to the door. She got more blankets and covered him up and then added her hot water bottles around him. She took off his boots, which she noticed were army issue, and checked his toes. There was mild frostbite around the edges and on the toes. She covered them up with the blanket and placed a covered hot water bottle off to the side so they could warm up slowly.

  She then went up to take his gas mask off and check his face for frostbite. His greasy hair was flopped over the front of the mask and she carefully eased it up and over his face and froze. Her whole body went numb and tears filled her eyes. This couldn’t be...how was it possible...she sank to her knees next to the bed. It was Tom!

  She got a hold of herself and quickly went into action. This completely changed how she was going to treat him. She quickly started removing all of his clothes, she knew without a doubt this was her Tom when she found his chemical detector in his pocket and saw his tattoos. She moved him under the covers in the middle of the bed, she put a beanie cap over his head, making sure his ice-cold ears were covered. She wrapped the hot water bottles and placed them all around the edges of his body. She even got the ones from the cat tent, leaving just one to keep them warm. She undressed herself and climbed into the bed next to him, warming him with her own body heat.

  She lay next to his unconscious body and wonder
ed how he could be here. How was he alive and how did he find her? There was only one way she was going to find out! She had to keep him alive! She checked him over under the blanket while his body slowly warmed. He had a dirty gauze on the front of his left shoulder and another one still covering the wound on his right side, but only on the front. His right knee was bandaged and had a brace over it. It looked like a professional brace and she wondered where it came from. She also noted that he was completely emaciated and when she checked his skin she saw he was also slightly dehydrated.

  He was warming up well and she decided getting fluids in him right now would be just as important, he would continue to warm slowly now that he was inside out of the cold. She dribbled water from a canteen into his mouth but it was slow going. She got her CamelBak and laid the bag down next to Tom’s head on a stack of pillows. She opened the bite piece fully and then loosened the fill valve on the bag, there was a slow drip of water that came out as long as the valve was lower than the bag. She placed the bite valve in his mouth and used medical tape to secure it there.

  She checked his feet and they still felt like ice, she knew it would take time. She also checked his fingers and face, they were all warming up but it was slow. She took her biggest pot and filled it with water to replace the water in the hot water bottles and to sterilize the canning jars at the same time, not like she was going to be drinking this water.

  Sam remembered helping her Granny can blackberry jam when she was a kid. They would spend days picking the blackberries from the thorny bushes and Sam would eat them straight out of the bucket as they picked. They would then clean them and make sweet blackberry jam. She loved helping Granny do the canning too, it always fascinated her to see those lids seal.

  She placed a towel in the bottom of the big pot and placed the canning jars inside and then the rings. She placed the lids in a separate smaller pot and put them on to simmer. When the big pot was boiling she let it go for fifteen minutes. She thought it would help heat the room too, she suddenly wasn’t worried about using too much propane.

  She didn’t forget about Mew, she heated up a bottle and gave it to her while sitting next to Tom on the bed. She couldn’t keep from touching him and making sure he was really there. She remembered Tabitha and how she was doing the same thing with John when they first got to Dozier Hall.

  She took the hot jars out of the water and prepared them for the beans. These were small half pint jars, so they were perfect for her use. She filled up five jars and there were still some beans left in the pot that she decided would be perfect to feed to Tom. She considered sealing the jars but just put the lids on and decided she would let them cool off and then place them in the hallway where they would probably freeze. She would eat them before they could go bad.

  She checked Tom again and saw his feet were still slow to being thawed. She remembered frostbitten feet and hands could be thawed in warm water. She poured some of the water in a foot tub she found in the bathroom and waited for it to cool down while she refilled the hot water bottles. When it was comfortably warm she placed a few pillows under his knees and carefully put his feet in the water. She put one of the freshly filled hot water bottles next to the tub, hoping it would help to keep the water warm longer.

  She heated up the beans that were left, then mashed them with a fork until they were smooth then added a little water to make it thinner. She worried because the beans were a little spicy so she added creamer to the mush and stirred it in and tasted. It was similar to refried beans, just runnier, so she added a little more and decided it should be fine. She poured a small amount into a bowl and then poured the rest into one of her plastic bowls with a lid.

  She had already refilled all of the hot water bottles and checked on Lucky and the kittens. They were doing fine with the one bottle; the covered tent helped a lot to keep the warmth in. She checked Tom’s extremities and decided his feet were finally thawing and his hands were warming up well too. She had double wrapped hot water bottles in towels and placed them under his hands, next to his body.

  She removed his feet from the lukewarm water, dried them and put fresh clean socks on him. She raised him up and put pillows behind him so she could feed him the warm beans. Wrapping another of the hot water bottles she put it against his feet at the end of the bed.

  She sat next to him on the bed, “Tom? Tom can you hear me?” He actually moved his head a little. “Tom, I have some warm beans here for you, I’m going to try to feed you now, OK?” She waited to see if he was going to react.

  She had already removed the CamelBak mouthpiece from his mouth and closed it. She took a small amount of beans on the teaspoon and pushed it into his mouth. It looked like he swallowed so she gave him more. His eyes still weren’t open but he was actively swallowing now so she took that as a good sign. He ate about a quarter of a cup and she could see his body relax. He was asleep.

  She cleaned up and put the bean slurry away for now. Lucky came out of the closet just as she was finishing putting everything away and she jumped on the bed and sniffed around Tom. She watched as Lucky sniffed him and then climbed up and lay on his chest. Well, looks like he had Lucky’s approval.

  Sam warmed more water up and gave Tom a warm sponge bath. She changed his bandages and removed the brace from his knee and changed that bandage too. The shoulder wound had professional looking stitches in it and it looked like the leg wound had been opened back up and maybe debrided and then restitched. The wound on the side of his gut was scabbed over and appeared to be healing well. He was just undernourished, dehydrated and recovering from hypothermia. She was hopeful he would be awake by tomorrow.

  She finished cleaning him up, even using the foot tub to wash his hair in some warm water. While washing his hair she found a long thick scab on his head that was covered up by the long hair. She dried his hair as best she could with a towel and then took one of the warm towels off a hot water bottle and wrapped it around his wet head. She felt like a nurse and remembering the beaker they had used in the Chemistry lab, she looked around for another option so he wouldn’t have to get out of bed when he woke up. She found a wide mouthed sports bottle in the kitchen and thought that might work.

  She was tired and saw it was already 22:00 hours. She made some hot Ovaltine and shared the cup with Tom by giving him small spoonfuls. He readily swallowed the hot sweet drink but still didn’t open his eyes. She added an extra blanket to the bed and undressed down to her panties and climbed in next to Tom to keep him warm while they slept.

  Chapter 29

  -----------------------------------------------------

  22 December 2020 N-Day +165 days

  Kittens 7 days old

  Sam woke up once during the early morning, long before the sun was up, and checked on Tom. He was warm and sleeping soundly. She got up and made a quick bottle for Mew and then climbed back into the warm bed to feed her. She fell back asleep and was awoke a few hours later by Lucky who had come looking for her baby that was still tucked in next to Sam. She smiled and rolled over, cuddling up to Tom.

  Movement next to her woke her again after a few more hours. She looked up and saw Tom’s bright green eyes looking down at her. Her heart soared and she smiled as the tears flowed from her eyes. “Hello my Beautiful Tham, I’m so glad to see you!” There were tears in his eyes and he wrapped his arms tight around her and hugged her.

  Her questions were bubbling up and ready to burst but she knew he needed to be taken care of first. She pulled herself up and kissed him on the lips. “Tom, I don’t understand, I thought you were dead! And I really don’t understand how you found me! So, I hope you are ready to explain to me how you are here! Not that I am complaining!...but first let me get you some food and make you comfortable, then you can explain!”

  Tom readily agreed but he said first he needed to use the bathroom. Sam grabbed the sports bottle and held it out. Tom laughed and said, “No Thanks!” he said he could get up if she would just give him some clothes and his kne
e brace back. He also asked if she had an extra toothbrush because he would like to brush his teeth.

  He had lost so much weight and muscle mass that he fit in the flannel pajamas she had found. She handed him the knee brace and he put it on over the pants. She also gave him a thick robe to wear to the bathroom and showed him where she had extra toothbrushes and toothpaste. She didn’t want to leave him alone for a minute but she also wanted to make a hot breakfast and she decided on hot coffee too.

  She filled up the coffee pot and put a big pot of water on with enough to make oatmeal, a bottle for Mew and refill the hot water bottles. While she was waiting she stacked up all of the pillows against the wall so they could lean against them and sit in the bed under the warm covers.

  By the time he came out of the bathroom she had everything ready. She helped him get settled in the bed with the warm hot water bottles. She handed him the hot cup of coffee and he moaned out loud as he took the first sip, “Coffee! And fresh brewed, not instant! I will tell you my story, if you tell me how you came about all of this food and equipment.” He waved his hand around the room as he said this in an excited voice. “And that Cat! Where did she come from?” Lucky was walking out of the closet, curious about the new voice she was hearing. She jumped up on the bed and rubbed her head against Tom’s hand. He was smiling the biggest smile she had ever seen as he petted Lucky, she turned in a circle and laid down on his lap.

  He looked up at Sam questioningly, “I will tell you my story and it is probably just as long as yours and I asked first...so you go first.” She handed him a bowl of hot oatmeal and took his coffee cup to set next to hers on the night stand. She crawled under the covers next to him with her bowl of oatmeal, settling in to hear his tale.