"And that person is you?" asked Justin.
"I have no idea. This is the blindness that I'm talking about. I sort of have a gut feeling for what needs to happen, but I have no idea what to do to make that happen. And when I think about this I sink into a feeling that I'm completely useless."
Sid slapped him on the shoulder. "Well at least you don't have a big head over it."
"What?" asked Dave.
"I was worried there a bit," said a grinning Sid. "You were starting to sound like one of those church types. I was thinking that at any moment you were going to sprout some nonsense about being the Messiah and that you'll save us all."
Dave looked flustered.
Justin looked down at the gathering walkers below. "They're getting a bit close. Let's move away and get ready for sleep."
"I haven't really expressed myself too well," said Dave.
"That's fine," said Justin. "The act of creation is always a mess. Keep trying out different ideas until you find the most effective one. I believe in you. You're a decent person and I'm sure that you'll figure this out."
The four took one last look over the parking spaces below before walking away from the roof's edge.
* * *
The sun was about to rise when Dave woke the next day. Dave looked around and noted that he was the only one awake. He clambered out of his sleeping bag and preceded to pull his shoes on. He then rolled up his sleeping bag and sleeping mat. He took the rolled items and attached them to the sides of his back pack.
Dave looked into his bag. The only things from his backpack that he had used were some books and he had already packed them away the night before. Dave carried his backpack over to the stairwell that lead down to the shopping centre and placed it next to his bike.
Dave decided that it would be too weird if he just left without talking to anyone, so he walked over to the roof's edge and waited for the others to wake. Dave looked around the car park below and there were still a few stragglers staggering around the car park. With the sun getting ready to rise, Dave watched the walkers staggering towards the exit. Even if he wanted to leave, Dave would still have needed to wait until the area around the shopping centre was fully cleared.
Dave didn't wait for long until Eric joined him. They nodded their greetings.
"So, you're still going to leave this morning?" asked Eric.
"There's a lot of things that I could do here, but I'm starting to feel pressured by time. And when it comes to beefing this place up some more, I'm pretty sure that you and Sid will be more than capable of doing a great job."
"Are you okay being alone?" said Eric in an almost shy manner.
Dave patted Eric on the shoulder. "I've kind of gotten used to the people here and I even enjoy the company. But it will be dangerous moving outside again, and I don't want to place more people than I need in that sort of risk."
"I don't mind that risk."
"You're not entirely a free man. Look about. Most people here look like they are shell shocked. Even though I've seen signs that energy is returning, most people here will need a lot of time to get themselves functional again. Until then you and Sid are going to be busy. These people need you way more than I need you. I'm not saying that I don't need you at all, but these people really, truly need your help."
Eric turned from Dave and looked out into the distance. "Yeah." In a previous time Eric was probably considered a nobody, but at this time and place Eric had an important role to play. A role that supported the lives of many people. Eric was just starting to realise that even someone who started out as zero could grow into someone important.
"I appreciate you wanting to help but we need to be where we are most needed, and right now you're needed here."
"So where are you needed?" said Eric looking hard at Dave.
Dave now took a turn at staring into the distance. "I don't know what this thing pulling me is. I don't know what task I'm being drawn to. But it's out there somewhere, and until I go looking for it I won't know what that thing is."
"Sounds like you guys are having a deep conversation," said Sid walking alongside Dave.
"We're just filling in some time," said Dave, "while waiting for our overnight guests to leave."
Sid looked over the car-parking spaces. "Looks pretty good down there."
"And the weather is fine as well."
"At least the weather didn't add to this shitfest."
Dave grinned. "Any idea when Justin is awake?"
"He should be awake now," said Sid. "Even though he's not normally a morning person."
"Okay. I better go and say 'goodbye' to him."
The three left the roof's edge and walked to the pile of blankets that contained Justin.
Sid gave the pile an unceremonious kick. Some groans came from below the blankets. Then Justin pulled the blankets off himself.
"Now that's a hangover," said Sid.
"This time of the day should be made illegal," said Justin.
"Don't bother getting up," said Dave. "I'm going to quickly say 'goodbye' and move on."
"Well," said Justin acting a little petulantly.
Dave grinned. "Goodbye." And put out his hand.
Justin stared at the hand for a moment before reaching out and giving it a shake. "Thanks. You were only here for a few days but you really turned everything around."
"There's still a lot to do," said Dave. "Blocking the road access. Parking some vehicles in front of the big entrances. And there's the big task of sweeping back, forth, up and down through this place to make certain that it's absolutely clear. And then you could try moving inside. Hopefully the weather will hold out until then."
"You make it sound easy," said Justin.
"That's because it is easy. Eric and Sid will be able to handle all this with ease. The tricky part is what will happen next."
"And that is?"
"I got no idea. You'll have to figure that out for yourself. Now that's going to be the real challenge. It's a challenge because you're going from making short term plans to long term plans. Other than the basic idea of 'survive' I can't even pretend that I know what this entails."
There was a moment's pause as they all thought this through.
"If I'm going to go," said Dave, "then I better go now. I can't waste any more daylight."
Justin nodded. "Good luck."
"Thanks, and you too. All of you."
Dave walked to the stairwell and picked up his backpack and pulled it on. While Dave was struggling to get the backpack on, Eric picked up Dave's bike. Sid opened the door to the stairwell.
"I'm surprised by how lethargic I feel," said Dave.
"That's what leaving friends behind feels like," said Sid.
They all stood about silent. Sid broke the mood by gesturing Eric through the door. Eric lifted the bike up, walked through the door and began clomping down the stairs. Dave followed and Sid let the door close behind them. Eric held the bike with one hand while opening the lower door with his spare hand. The three walked through the door and into the shopping centre. Eric placed the bike on the floor and began pushing it.
"This place feels really empty," said Sid looking around as they walked.
"Once everyone moves down from the roof then this place will be more lively," said Dave.
"It certainly is a turn around," said Eric. "Only a few days ago and I swear that everyone had given up."
"You two are going to be busy for a bit."
Together they walked down to the bottom floor and began to walk down the hall towards the rear docking area. When they entered the docking area they couldn't help but look around. With the roller doors down the place was oddly gloomy.
"The door is just down the side here," said Sid leading the way.
"During the excitement of getting the generator running, looking for other doors than the main ones completely slipped my mind. Good thing one of us was on the ball."
Sid laughed. "It was more like boredom. You two were gone
for some time before starting the generator."
"I hadn't done something like that before. I had to scratch my head for a bit."
"Well, that scratching seem to have worked," said Sid pointing at the closed roller doors.
They got the back door. It was a single, re-enforced, fire door - certainly solid enough in its own right. Sid pressed his ear to the door and listened carefully for a moment. Dave felt guilty for talking so loudly as they approached the door. There weren't any nearby windows to look through to see if the way was clear. After a few moments, Sid unlocked the door and opened it a crack. He peeked through the crack for another moment before fully opening the door and walking out. For a final tense moment he looked about.
"We're going to need to come up with a better way of getting through this door," said Sid.
"Maybe have someone on the roof looking over," suggested Dave.
"How would we communicate? If there was something outside you couldn't just yell."
"Well," said Dave. "Isn't there an electronics store? Maybe you could find some walkie-talkies."
"I think I've seen those," said Eric.
They were now all outside the shopping centre. Dave retrieved his bike from Eric and offered his hand.
Eric took the hand and shook it rapidly. "So you're finally leaving."
"Yep," replied Dave simply.
Sid suddenly found himself unable to speak and simply put out his hand. Dave took the hand and shook it, this time with a slow but firm confidence. To an outsider it might have looked like an uncomfortable silence, but this wasn't about discomfort.
"We'll meet up again," said Dave trying to address the unspoken sentiment.
Dave got on his bike, gave Eric and Sid a gentle look and started to pedal away. As Dave was about to reach the corner of the shopping centre he turned slightly on the bike and gave a wave. Eric and Sid waved back. Soon the corner of the shopping centre blocked Dave's view of his friends.
Dave focused on pedalling his bike and rode through the car park. He stopped on the exit ramps and looked back at the shopping centre. He didn't really see anyone but he lifted an arm and waved anyway. Dave resumed pedalling and reached the familiar highway that he travelled before.
Dave looked around before focusing on the west. There was something west. Something that called him. Something that would contradict the uselessness that he felt. Dave pushed on the bike's pedals and tried to answer that call.
* * *
It was about the middle of the afternoon when Dave slowed down and stepped off his bicycle. Except for a few stops to drink some water, Dave had pushed himself to travel as far as possible as fast as possible. Maybe he had some sort of fear that if he didn't travel far enough that he'd be tempted to turn around and return to the shopping centre.
He had reached an intersection of two main roads. On one corner of the intersection was a simple corner store. It was a single floor shop with wide open doors. Dave placed his bike against the wall nearest the door. He didn't immediately walk into the store, instead he walked along the sidewalk in front of the open doors.
It was a small place and he could easily see inside. It was a store that sold the basics to the locals. Milk, bread, cereal, and some tinned food. It wasn't a fancy place and only served a role as a place of convenience to the local residents. If one wanted more variety, one most likely had to jump into a car and drive to a nearby shopping centre - most likely the one that Dave had just left.
There was nothing that worried Dave in the store, so he looked at the buildings that were placed around the intersection. He was looking for a place to stay the night. This wasn't the city any more and he couldn't see anything higher than the single story buildings that were around him.
Dave looked back at the convenience store that he had inspected. It was the only building that he could see with a flat roof. He didn't appreciate the idea of sleeping out in the open on a roof, but it was much safer than being on the ground floor. So far he hadn't seen any threat that could climb and he didn't like the idea of getting trapped behind a door on the ground floor.
Dave began to walk around the store. The front had the usual facade with the shop's name printed in big letters. That wouldn't be the way to get up on the roof, so Dave walked around a side alley to the back of the building. At the back of the store, Dave noticed a split ladder system. It was the sort that had a looped cable that allowed a person at the top to roll the bottom half of the ladder up or down. It would have been a pain to get the ladder down if it was in the up state, however it was currently down and it allowed Dave to climb onto the roof.
Glancing around nervously, Dave started climbing the ladder. Besides the noise of his climb he didn't hear anything else. He reached the top of the ladder and stopped. Instead of climbing onto the roof, he stayed on the ladder and looked over the roof. It wasn't a large roof, but it was flat and clearly someone had been there recently.
Dave looked back before fully climbing onto the roof. The detritus of a small camp site was near the far wall. Dave walked over and began a closer inspection. Mostly a bunch of dirty blankets, some tied up plastic bags containing some open tins and a barbecue. The heavy looking barbecue caught Dave's interest immediately as it must have been a complete shit to get up onto the roof. Near the barbecue was a cardboard box filled with the odds and ends of running a barbecue.
This was going to be as good as place as any, so Dave took off his backpack and placed it down. Dave gave his back a pained stretch, his fists raised in a big Y.
He walked to the edge of the roof, looked over the half-wall and checked out the streets below. It seemed safe enough. Dave went to the ladder climbed down and walked around to the store again. He went in and found a carry bag and gathered a few tins of soup and some extra water bottles. He already had a good supply of these in his backpack but he intended to keep those as an emergency supply.
As Dave walked by the store's counter he noticed that some people had put some money on the counter surface. He was impressed that someone, even during the fall of society, still made an effect at maintaining the social contract. Dave shook his head with amusement when he noticed just how comfortable he had become with the changes.
Dave left the shop and walked around to the ladder. He climbed up with the shopping bag hanging from one shoulder. Once he was on the roof, Dave put the shopping bag down and used the cable system to raise the ladder to its up position with a loud clatter. The noise startled Dave a bit and he spent a minute walking around the roof seeing if he attracted any visitors.
Satisfied that he was alone, Dave took out two soup cans and walked over to the barbecue. He looked into the box nearby and fumbled around with the contents until he got a fire running in the barbecue. He wasn't the most efficient at using a barbecue, but since he wasn't intending to stay here long he wasn't too bothered.
Dave looked at the soup cans and realised that he didn't have any pots. In the spirit of an experiment, Dave used the tins' pull tops to open up the tins. He then placed the opened soup cans on the barbecue's grilling area. He wasn't sure how much heat he could apply, so he placed the cans to one side of the cooking plate. He plan was to let the flame heat the barbecue grill plate, and then use conduction to warm the soup. He wasn't really trying to boil the soup, he mostly wanted to have something different from the bland, cold soup that he had been eating for the last few days.
While waiting for the soup to warm up, Dave went to the roof's edge to look around. When he looked into the intersection he noted two walkers, their skin colour grey with yellow patches, staggering about. Dave watched then for a few minutes in order to affirm that they just seemed to be acting in a confused manner and seemed to be completely unaware of his existence. As he watched, another two walked into the intersection area. Dave was a little surprised that the rattling of the ladder had brought so much attention to himself. They didn't seem to even notice Dave watching them, so Dave felt safe staying on the roof.
Dave turned from
his observing and returned to the barbecue. He was interested to notice that both cans were slowly simmering. They were clearly warm, but not so hot that they bubbled over and spilled his soup. It was an improvised cooking session but this was turning out better than he thought.
He used a set of tongs from the box to push the soup cans to the edge of the grill plate in the hope that they were far enough from the flame to not heat up. Dave held his hand close to the soup cans, being careful not to touch them, and could tell that the cans were too warm to hold.
Dave decided to let his soup cool down while checking on his guests in the intersection area. He was a bit surprised to see that there were now ten walkers. But they didn't seem too interested in Dave or Dave's location. Instead they just seemed to be passing through the intersection as if following the road on their own journey. Dave looked up the road in the direction that the walkers were staggering and wondered why the walkers were heading in that way. Dave squinted his eyes and strained his ears but couldn't detect anything.
Giving up on trying to make sense of what was going on, Dave went to his backpack and dug out a clean spoon. He went to the the barbecue and held his hand close to one of the soup cans. He then quickly tapped one of the cans with his little finger. Since he didn't feel enough heat to burn, Dave picked up the can and held it under his nose. It wasn't much, but just giving the soup a little bit of a heating was enough to make the soup smell glorious.
Dave returned to the roof's edge and leaned on the half wall. He began spooning soup into his mouth as he watched the walkers staggering down the road towards the west. He had never seen anything like this. Maybe he should have been alarmed by the unusual behaviour, but instead found himself rather fascinated.
Dave looked up the sky. There was clearly still a lot of the day to go. This was far too early for the walkers to come out for their nightly gatherings.
Dave scraped the inside of his soup can with his spoon, before walking back to the barbecue. Dave placed the empty can on the grill and picked up the second soup can. He then returned to the roof's edge so that he could continue watching the strange behaviours of the walkers. He couldn't figure out any reason for their actions.
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