The experiment was deemed a partial success, as it seemed as if the lever did manage to create an electrical charge. Since none of them knew how to produce electricity—Touré vaguely recalled magnets being important, but couldn’t remember why—having something that gave them a charge was a solid step forward. They just didn’t know what to do with it.
Less harmlessly, after getting additional clothes and various sundries for the dorm, Robbie and Touré spent their days roaming the area on bikes. This wasn’t inherently harmful—they were gaining a better understanding of how wrecked certain parts of the commonwealth were—but it was a waste of the time at least one member of the party thought they simply didn’t have.
Not that looking for other survivors wasn’t of value.
They were hoping to find someone with complementary skills. Medical training would be of particular use, everyone agreed, for while nobody had suffered a serious cut, bruise, or break as of yet, it was sure to happen eventually. Better than a doctor would be someone who knew what happened during the whateverpocalypse—Touré’s word, which they’d all adopted without entirely meaning to—but they’d all come to some sort of peace with the notion that no explanation would be forthcoming. Or if it did, it wouldn’t be soon.
The daily jaunts were something Robbie and Touré decided to do on their own, and as the only people in the group who could ride bikes—Bethany claimed she didn’t know how, and Carol obviously couldn’t—they didn’t seem to think additional input was needed.
Carol disagreed. Her reasoning was solid: It was going to be cold soon, and they needed to be prepared for that.
One of the reasons this point became a subject of debate was that nobody could agree on how soon was soon.
2
“I am saying,” Carol said, “that we need to plan for winter, and we need to do it now.”
They were sitting in the common room after another day in which the guys returned with little more than stories of wrecked places. On this day, they reported that a mall in Porter Square had been vandalized by animals, a neighborhood near Teele Square had burned down recently, and there still wasn’t anyone alive other than them. Also, they saw a bear. This was very exciting.
Carol was pushing them to collect more winter-specific provisions. Robbie and Touré had already picked up spare bits of outerwear on their trips—mostly for themselves, since they could try stuff on as they went—but the problem was, there was only so much they could carry back on the bikes. To do this right, they really needed a car, and that wasn’t an option.
“I understand that,” Touré said to Carol, “but we have time. We’ll pick up things every day, okay? It’s no rush. You’re from Florida; you probably think winter here is way worse than it is.”
“I’m familiar with seasonality,” Carol said, “and I’m up to date on the severity of the winters in New England. The climatic changes—”
“Yeah, yeah, but it’s months away, I’m saying. Maybe we get five feet of snow this year . . . it’s still five feet of snow four or five months from now.”
“It’s five feet of snow we won’t know is coming until it’s here,” Carol said. “We have no forecasts, and meteorologist isn’t on our list of skills. And it isn’t just clothing. It’s heat. We have none. We’ll freeze to death where we’re sitting if we don’t prepare. It’s already chilly in the evenings, and we have only so many blankets.”
“Hang on,” Robbie said. “Touré, what do you mean, four or five months?”
“Yeah, I was wondering about that too,” Bethany said. “What are you talking about? It’s like eight or nine months.”
“Right,” Robbie said. “No, wait, hang on. That isn’t right either. It’s two or three months. I don’t know where eight came from.”
“Yes,” Carol agreed. “Robbie’s right. We’re nearing the end of September. The weather is surely about to turn.”
“Whoa, what?” Touré said. “It’s July.”
“It’s September,” Robbie said. “Maybe second week.”
“Closer to the fourth,” Carol said.
“No, the first week of classes was the first week of September, and then . . .”
“Classes began the middle of the second week,” Carol said. “And I know exactly what time of month it is now.”
“How do you . . . Oh. Right.”
“I’m . . . quite regular,” she said.
“So I guess we can use that as a timepiece now,” Robbie said. “But honestly, this is turning into the weirdest conversation I’ve ever had.”
“You’re all nuts,” Bethany said. “It’s not close to September or July. It’s the middle of May.”
“May?” Touré said. “You’re off your meds, kid.”
None of them knew very much about Bethany. She had a way with locks that implied an extensive history of minor criminal behavior, but that wasn’t as illuminating as it probably should have been. Robbie could envision a backstory for her that was built on this particular aspect of her character, but it would have been ripped from Oliver Twist, and this wasn’t nineteenth-century London. Granted, he never lived in a city before, but he didn’t think there were roving packs of street urchins pickpocketing Boston’s well-to-do.
Her being an orphan was certainly still a possibility; she never spoke about her family, or about any friends, which could indicate some reticence to discuss painful matters—on the assumption they were all dead—or it could mean she had no parents or friends. Either way, Robbie hadn’t figured out how to ask her about herself yet; she tended to get defensive quickly.
One thing he did know about her was that she hated to be called a kid. This was probably why Touré always called her that.
“I will cut your throat in your sleep if you don’t stop with the kid crap,” she said to Touré.
“With what?” he asked. “Are you packing a switchblade?”
“I know how to handle myself.”
“Sure.”
“I should never have let you in!” she said. “I should have let the wolves get you.”
Bethany lamented having ever allowed Touré into the supermarket at least once a day.
“Guys, knock it off,” Robbie said. “This isn’t helping.”
“Well, it’s not May, Robert,” Touré said, “and it’s not September. It’s July. You think I don’t know what month it is? What’s the matter with all of you?”
“Harvard classes don’t begin before September,” Carol said. “Why would we be here otherwise?”
“That’s between you and the school,” Touré said. “I know what I know.”
“We don’t need to rely on what you think you know,” Robbie said. “There are other ways.”
“Yeah, I checked online this morning,” Touré said. “It didn’t help.”
“No, man—look outside.”
The windows on one side of the common room looked out over the courtyard, beyond which was Memorial Drive and the Charles River. Out of the other windows was a formerly well-groomed lawn with a copse of trees.
Robbie pointed to the windows facing the front of the dorm, and singled out the trees, still visible in the light of the setting sun.
“I’ve been outside,” Touré said. “What’s your point?”
“The leaves are turning. You want to tell me that happens in July?”
The leaves weren’t just turning; they had already turned. There was no green left, and there hadn’t been for at least a week. Everywhere they looked was an explosion of oranges and browns.
“Oh . . . damn,” Touré said. “It didn’t even register.”
“You’re right,” Bethany said. “He’s right.”
“But I think we’re all wrong, guys,” Touré said. “I mean, unless the seasons got messed up along with everything else, it’s gotta be October. How’s that even possible?”
“How is any of this possible?” Carol said. “As I said, we live in a building with no heat, and we have no winter cl
othes. How long before we’re in trouble?”
“Maybe a month,” Touré said.
“We’ll need firewood,” Carol said. “Perhaps tomorrow you could find an axe. Has anyone chopped wood before?”
“I’ve set a couple of fires,” Bethany said.
“Of course you have,” Touré said.
3
The next day, Robbie and Touré hit up the hardware store on Mass Ave. It was only a mile or so from the dormitory, a few blocks from Touré’s apartment, and within sight of the bike shop. Given the store wasn’t terribly large, there was a decent chance there were no axes, but according to Touré the nearest big chain store was in Watertown and they hadn’t even attempted to explore in that direction yet.
They were both very familiar with the neighborhood. That neither of them had tried to tap the contents of the hardware store already only spoke to how unprepared they were to survive the whateverpocalypse. Surely even a half-decent prepper would have started there. A half-decent prepper would have also known what to do with the stuff inside.
Robbie had a passing familiarity with tools. His dad was handy enough, and he’d provided Robbie with plenty of opportunities to watch someone else use tools correctly. He just never did much of it himself. When something broke, he’d tell Dad, and Dad would fix it.
Robbie never used to think much about what his adult life was going to be like, but he imagined a day when he was out on his own, living in a different state with a wife and child, calling up his father because he needed a shelf hung and figured it would end up crooked if he did it himself. He also imagined his father seeing no problem with just driving over to take care of it.
The idea that his father would never be able to do that now had just begun to sink in over the past couple of days. When Robbie was alone, he discovered that he was prone to crying jags without any evident trigger. He wasn’t thinking about his father when it happened, or his mom, sister, or friends from home. This was almost worse, because it meant that just being alive was its own trigger.
He kept the crying from the others, as much as that was possible.
“Yeah, man, I don’t know what it is,” Touré was saying. “She bugs me; I can’t explain why.”
He was complaining about Bethany, which he did regularly.
“Here’s one,” Robbie said, kneeling over to pry a brick loose from the sidewalk.
In Cambridge some sidewalks were paved with regular old cement, some sections were brick, and a couple of spots—around the trees—were covered with some sort of breathable rubber. Robbie thought the rubber was sort of cool; it allowed the tree to grow (and must be letting water through a porous surface) without the roots destroying the sidewalk. It was especially noticeable now that the trees had gone mad. There were several cracks in the cement, and the tree roots under brick had managed to work most of the bricks loose, but the rubber held.
They needed bricks to get into stores. It was either that or bring along the resident lock-picker, which Touré considered a last resort.
“I think she’s hiding something,” Touré said.
“You’re the only one picking that up,” Robbie said. “She’s just private. Next you’ll be telling me you think Carol can actually see.”
Touré laughed.
“Nah, I tested that,” he said.
“How?”
“Never mind how. You gonna throw that, or can I?”
“Have at it,” Robbie said, handing over the brick.
It was still early morning. There was a low fog hanging over the street which, in the red sunrise, turned everything pinkish. It looked like it was going to be a clear day, but they had rain a few days back that had come out of nowhere, so he wasn’t sure how much he could trust his predictive skills.
Rabbits, squirrels, and chipmunks were scurrying this way and that through the ground fog, not at all certain about what to do with the humans. It was like they thought they probably shouldbe afraid but were waiting on confirmation.
Robbie wondered for the umpteenth time what it would take to kill and eat one of the rabbits. It was a thought he never expected to have, certainly, not to mention a skill he never expected to need. On the other hand, his breakfast had been five bites of a Noot bar, which he was quite thoroughly sick of. He was pretty sure if he didn’t eat something else soon, the next meat-centric daydream he had was going to involve cannibalism.
Touré chucked the brick through the front window of the hardware store. The glass shattered loudly, disrupting the peaceful morning.
“Boy, that’s fun,” Touré said. “We should do this more often.”
“Probably heard that for miles,” Robbie said. “So maybe not.”
“So? We’re looking for other people, right? Do more of this and they’ll find us.”
“That’s not the kind of attention I’m worried about.”
“The wolves only hunt at night. C’mon.”
Robbie didn’t say so, because Touré already knew it, even if he wasn’t willing to acknowledge it, but there were creatures other than the wolf-beasts to worry about. They’d seen—from a distance, thankfully—two bears, on different occasions in different parts of town. They also met an elk who looked downright furious, gotten charged at by a four-point buck, stared down a wild boar, and saw a moose from afar. Nature was terrifying, and it was all over the place.
They stepped into the store, past a cardboard display touting chainsaw technology.
It was dark in the back. Robbie took the bag off his shoulder and extracted a wooden table leg with a torn piece of bedsheet wrapped around the tip, a container of lighter fluid, and a book of matches.
The carton of matches was the big prize of their second day’s quest for provisions, and the lighter fluid the big prize of the third day. They had proven to be more useful than just about anything other than the Noot bars. The team still had to learn how to rediscover electricity, but fire remained discovered.
He squirted some lighter fluid on the bedsheet, lit the torch, and headed into the back.
“And another thing,” Touré said. “She keeps harping on how she saved my life, like that’s a thing.”
“But didn’t she?”
“We don’t know that. You guys made it through the night okay. I mean, all she did was open a door. I bet I could’ve found a way in on my own.”
The store was selectively empty. All the camping gear was gone, which was frustrating but not surprising. They needed sleeping bags, blankets, and winter gear, but this wasn’t the place to get those things anyway. Robbie didn’t know where to go, but that was the next problem after figuring out how to turn a tree into firewood.
“Axes,” Touré said, from the other end of the aisle. “I think. Bring the light over.”
Not just axes; a selection of axes, which just struck Robbie as weird. How many different ways could there be to design an axe?
“Look, I understand,” Robbie said, regarding Bethany. “She annoys you. You annoy her just as much, I’m sure. It’s normal. I probably annoy all three of you.”
Touré laughed.
“Sure, but not so much. And I don’t think you and Carol annoy each other at all. How’s this?”
He held up one of the four axe options.
“Super. What do you mean, about Carol?”
“You know what. Speaking of, you ever think about . . . ?”
“Think about what?”
“You know. Come springtime, we’re going to have to start talking about repopulating, right? Last people on Earth, we have a duty here.”
“I am begging you to stop talking right now.”
“Fine. We’ll take two axes. Unless you want to try a chainsaw? They run on gas, don’t they?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how to use one and I like having all my limbs.”
“Yeah, me too. It’s an option, though. Keep it in the back of your mind, in case it turns out chopping down a tree is too hard.”
Touré turned around to
head back to the street, and Robbie was about to follow when he caught a flash of light at the edge of his vision.
It was coming from the back of the store.
“Hey, Touré?” Robbie said.
“Yeah?”
Touré looked back. Robbie didn’t have to add anything, as it was quickly obvious what was bothering him.
There was a collection of fireflies in the back. That wasn’t really what it was, but that was what it looked like—a swirl of light spinning in a tight circle, not obviously emanating from or being manipulated by anything nearby.
“What . . . the hell . . . is that?” Touré asked.
“I have no idea.”
The lights settled into a stationary orbit: vaguely vertical, about six feet tall and three feet wide.
And then, after a collective shimmer, they re-formed into something with two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head.
Robbie and Touré had just enough time to register this before it blinked out of existence.
Robbie realized he was holding his breath.
“You saw that, right?” Touré asked. “That wasn’t just me?”
“I saw it.”
Robbie walked to the back of the store, to the spot where the shimmery whatever-it-was had appeared. Nothing was there that could explain what they’d just witnessed, although he couldn’t really imagine what a proper explanation would look like.
“What do you think it was?” Robbie asked.
“I have some ideas. A human being trapped in another dimension, trying to tell us what happened to everyone. An alien. A silvery ghost piercing the veil to warn us about something. All sound good to me.”
“A hallucination?”
“Both of us?”
“A joint hallucination.”
“Sure, if that’s possible,” Touré said. “I like the other options better. I can probably come up with ten more if you give me a few minutes.”
“We should ask Bethany if she’s seen anything like that,” Robbie said.
Touré shrugged. “Maybe,” he said.
“You don’t want to ask Bethany.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I know you don’t like her, but she can see, so . . .”
The Apocalypse Seven Page 10