He found them. He also discovered they weren’t as tricky to put together as Malcolm made them out to be. Then again, Meredith reminded him that Malcolm souped up the vehicles to make them better, or at least his.
The two man, golf cart vehicles, smaller versions of what John and Meredith drove were covered, they just needed cleaning. The solar battery was sealed in a case, and that first charge was going to take a little longer.
They had all that done by nightfall.
When Meredith woke the next day she wondered if Hunter ever slept. He was still in the same guarded position he held the night before. While John finished up a few things, Meredith brought Hunter a bottle of juice.
“For you,” She said, handing it to him. “Thank you for watching out.”
“Grateful.” Hunter took the bottle.
“Don’t you sleep?”
“Yes. Do you?”
“Yes, I did. You did not.”
He lifted his hand to his forehead and mimed staring out. “Must watch.”
“We appreciate it. You are a good man, Hunter.” She laid her hand on his shoulder.
“Ah,” John said as he approached. ‘Flirting with our post apocalypse friend, I see.”
“What?”
“Dainty touch. Big brawny guy. I can tell.”
Meredith laughed. “You’re silly. He’s very nice.”
“Hmm. Yes.”
“Are we done here?” Meredith asked.
“We are. I told them about Champaign and that we are all meeting there. That if we leave, we will leave signs to let them know.”
“Maybe we should wait for them to get there. We are ahead of schedule.”
“This is true and they know the time frame. I told them we’ll probably try to find Salvation. Who knows? But … we need to get moving so we can take Hunter back and make some headway today.”
Upon that, Hunter stood. “No. Hunter go with you.”
“Hunter,” Meredith spoke gently. “We’re going to take you back.”
“No, Hunter wants to go with you. See … world.”
John looked at him. ‘Even if we take you, we still need to go back and let them know we are all right. Your people were kind to us.”
Hunter nodded.
John asked. “Why would you want to leave them? Don’t you have family?”
“Hunter … has no one. See the world.”
“Yes, I heard,” John said.
“Hunter likes Meredith.”
John cracked a smile. “I see. Well, then, who am I to stand in the way of a budding May-December Romance. Very well. We are glad to have you.” John gave a swat to Hunter’s arm and whispered to Meredith. “Look at you having a boyfriend in the apocalypse.”
Meredith didn’t know what to say. She felt awkward and on the spot, and only glanced at Hunter with a smile.
They really had to get moving. And despite John’s wisecracks about Hunter’s infatuation, Meredith was glad to have Hunter along. With the world so unknown, and with the trouble she and John encountered not long before, Hunter was a valuable asset in such a world gone bad.
<><><><>
On the stainless steel prep counter in the kitchen of a corner diner, Nora and a young woman named Marilee, mixed oats and honey to create some sort of granola concoction.
“So,” Marilee spoke brightly with a high-pitched voice. She was young, definitely born post virus. Her blonde hair was blunt cut to her shoulders and the shiniest hair Nora had ever seen. “I was thinking about some joke you told last night.”
“Okay.”
“I laughed.”
“Good.”
“But I didn’t get it.” She paused. “What is a zombie?”
“Oh, wow, you don’t know what a zombie is?”
“No.” She shook her head.
“A zombie is a person that died, that eats flesh, that’s all they know. They are walking dead.”
“Did they have them when in your time?”
“Zombies? No. Just in movies. They aren’t real. We lived in a time where people were infatuated by them.”
“Walking dead corpses that eat people?”
“Yes.”
Marilee waved out her hand. “Well, that’s just silly. I mean, they’re people right. Rotting flesh. That’s what happens. Flesh rots. Who came up with that idea? Dead people eating other people?”
“Some say a guy named George Romero made them famous.”
“Well shame on him.”
Nora laughed.
“What was it like?” Marilee asked. “Living before the virus.”
“It was nice. It was convenient.”
“Things are convenient here,” Marilee said. “Some say you guys had the ability to communicate with the world.”
“We did.”
“Salvation is supposed to have all that and more. They’re supposed to be all high technical and stuff. Gadgets. Is that why you want to go there?”
“No. I want to go there to see if I can find my family.”
“That was a lifetime ago. Older than me. They’ll be old.”
“I still want to find them. Don’t you ever want to go to Salvation?”
“Nah,” she said. “None of us do. I like it here. Most people here were too young to remember much about life before the virus. If they were alive at all.”
“What’s it like? Living in this world now.”
“Fine. We eat. We laugh. We love. What more can you ask for? What else do you need?”
“This is true.”
“So where’s your friend?” Marilee asked.
“I don’t know. He said he’d be back. He wanted to look ….” Nora paused when she heard the distant sound of music. “Aw. Bet that’s him.”
“What is that?”
“Music?”
“How is that possible? Joe the piano player is in the fields.”
“That’s not Joe. I bet. Jason plays.”
“What does that …?”
“Will you excuse me?” Nora wiped off her hands. “I’ll be back.”
“Sure.”
What was he doing? Nora wondered. Did he have an audience and didn’t tell her. There was no doubt where it came from. Jason told her he wanted to go to the church; she thought he’d wait for her.
In an empty town, sound traveled, and the tinkling of the piano transformed into the sound of Jason singing.
It was mellow at first, but Nora clearly could hear the emotion cut through the song. It was a spiritual song, she didn’t need to make out the lyrics to feel that. Nor did anyone else.
Suddenly, his singing didn’t just call to her, it called to many in the small area. People stopped what they were doing and followed her to the church.
Nora didn’t know to whether to walk in, or wait. The song intensified as Jason’s emotion and amazing voice did. As she reached for the door, he stopped singing, but continued to play. That’s when she heard him speak and she quietly slipped in and stood there in awe.
He sat at the piano, his eyes closed, head swaying.
“Does He exist? In this world, do we still believe in His presence? Are we angry and feel cheated or blessed to be chosen.” He spoke in such a smooth preacher way, then after a pause, he broke out. His voice gained a raspy sound, his face red as he drew from his soul the powerful portion of the song. Hands clamoring on the keys as he blasted the end, hitting a high note that shocked Nora. Crescendo over, Jason brought it down, mellow, to a whisper until he ended.
His head was down.
Nora clapped. Slow at first then she jolted in surprise as others applauded as well. She looked around, about ten people had also slipped into the church.
Jason opened his eyes, a slight blush swept across his face and he shook his head with a smile.
“Looks like we got a real preacher,” someone said.
Jason waved his hand as if to say ‘no’.
“We expect a concert tonight,” another man added with a laugh. “Okay people back to work. We
’ll guilt him later.”
Nora waited until everyone filed out and she walked toward the front of the church.
“Wow, I had an audience,” Jason said shyly. “I didn’t know.”
“You called them.”
“I what?”
“You called them, Jason. Your voice, your passion brought them in. I see why you were such a big deal.”
“Nora, it was one song.” He stood and leaned with his arm against the piano.
“It was more than that.” She approached him.
“At least the piano was in tune.”
“Eh, Joe the piano player probably keeps it that way.”
“Who?”
Nora waved out her hand. “Can I say something?”
“You will anyhow.”
“True,” She smiled. “You’re home.”
“What do you mean?”
“I have spent every single second, of every day with you and I have never felt or seen you more at ease. More in your element. What brought it out?”
“I don’t know. I came in here and I just felt like it.”
“You talk a lot about how the network made you. Peeled your skin, plucked your eyebrows, cut your mullet and gave you …a...” she nudged him. “Wife.”
“Yeah, they did.” He lowered his head in a shy way.
“They didn’t give you this.” She touched his chest over his heart. “They didn’t make you a preacher, they didn’t give you spirit, they helped bring it out. You express guilt over who you were, time to take pride in the man you became. This is why you were chosen to live in this world.”
Jason lifted his eyes. “Those are pretty complimentary words.”
“I mean them. I don’t think I liked you much until right now.”
“What?” Jason laughed.
“Kidding. I liked you. But now I think you’re a pretty amazing guy, Jason.”
“All that over a song?”
“No. All that over making me feel something. Emotion. Missing. Strength. Everything that seemed frozen with me felt somewhat defrosted.”
“You’re pretty amazing too, Nora.”
“Yeah, I know.”
It took Jason by surprise and he laughed. He laughed hard, reached out, placed his hand behind her neck, pulled her to him and placed his lips on her forehead. He pulled back with another laugh.
“And you tell really dumb jokes.”
“Oh, I have another.”
His eyes widened. “I think I was going to search out a new home for us here.” He started to walk toward the back of the sanctuary.
“Seriously it’s good. How long did it take the plague to wipe out the world?’
Jason paused by the back door.
“No one knows. Time just flew by. Get it? Flew? Flu.”
After a groan, Jason chuckled and disappeared into the back of the church.
“Oh, he likes my jokes, he does.” Nora said to herself and followed.
<><><><>
They left camp under a pink sky, light enough for Malcolm to get a glimpse of Vegas, sad yet in a way beautiful. With seven hours road time ahead, barring any problems, they’d have to make camp at G1 Lab if they were held up there for longer than four hours.
It wasn’t something big, but it was enough to set up a jitter of worry in Malcolm’s gut. He spent hours trying to convince himself he was taking the tiny conversation out of context.
“And if it’s viable?” Maggie asked Norris.
“Orders to terminate,” Norris said.
“Just checking.”
They spoke in a whisper and admittedly, Malcolm didn’t catch what they were talking about. It could have been about road savages as the other soldier called them.
He listened to a nice history lesson from Lt. Gary Greg, the historian. Hearing about things that happened to successfully aid in building the wall that took ten years to construct. He told about the workers and how they were misled into believing they were automatically included. The most interesting part of the story was the great virus that occurred in year seven of building the wall when, fifty percent of those who worked on it, died within days.
“It was horrendous,” he said. “To replace all those workers was insane.”
“I bet,” Malcolm murmured.
It sounded sort of inhumane, but in a way it was the only humane way to save a portion of the country.
Malcolm didn’t speak to Maggie about the exchange he heard, he just kept playing it in his head and coming up with other reasons for it, other than what his gut was telling him. The search for the cure, in Malcolm’s mind went deeper than what they were saying.
Maggie was engrossed with a hand held contraption. He thought it was a phone at first, but he hadn’t seen her speak into it. It was about the size of an original iPhone, but as thin as credit card. Her finger swiped so it didn’t look like she was sending a text.
“Hey, Dad,” Trey slid next to Malcolm. He had been in the back of the van.
“How was your nap?”
“Fine. Bored. What are you doing?”
“What is that thing she has?” Malcolm asked.
“Aldervice.”
“A what?”
“Aldervice, it’s like a phone. I mean really close to it.”
“Can you text on it?”
“Yeah …” Trey leaned forward and reached into his back pocket, pulling out one. “Thirty percent of people in Salvation have one now. I have one because I make deliveries there...”
Malcolm took the device. It was light and surprisingly flexible. He touched the surface and it did look like a phone. “So she’s swiping through something?”
“Probably notes. Pictures. Who knows?”
“Games.”
“Nah, there’s no games. Very little entertainment in Salvation.”
“I have to tell you,” Malcolm said, “Salvation sounds boring.”
“It has its downfalls, but it has perks.”
“So technology didn’t really die.”
“It evolved to meet the need,” Trey explained. “All computers are like tablets now. No internet, but you can send things to one another. And call … but you don’t need a phone number.”
“How is that possible?”
“Works on user ID. Way, way, way back before my time, they had these things called operators.”
“I know what they are.”
“People used to call the operator and she would connect them,” Trey took back the device and showed him the call button. “Say you lived in Salvation. I could press this and ask the operator to connect me to say Mal and then typically a double or triple digit.”
“Sounds complicated.”
“Not really, it helps them keep track of communication and what is being said. Hence why I don’t live there.”
“That’s crazy. It also works through the satellites that are still up there when you’re out of Salvation. It was first used by the military until everyone who was going to get one had theirs.”
“So you can get calls?”
“Yes, it can also be used as a frequency.” With a swipe of his thumb, he exposed another screen that looked like a radio microphone. “Problem with this, there are only four channels and an all call. Anyone can hear you if they are monitoring that channel. Sometimes I’ll just leave a channel on at home and listen. It doesn’t ring for that, you’ll just hear the person speaking.” Trey paused. “You okay? I mean, seems kind of trivial for you to be so focused on.”
“Yeah, I’m good. It’s just this whole search mission…” Malcolm lowered his voice. “I don’t have any proof or any reason, but now suddenly something feels … off.”
‘Yep. I know what you mean.” Trey said.
No argument. No trying to tell his father he was nuts, or convince him otherwise, Trey without hesitation agreed and that worried Malcolm even more.
TWELVE – STOW
“They existed for sixty-five million years,” John told Meredith. “I’m pretty certain, thirty year
s is a drop in a bucket.”
Meredith argued and told John he was nuts, but she saw the reasoning behind it. Hunter repeatedly said, “see the world.”
Like any young person, Hunter longed to see what was beyond his boundaries. Matthew was envious when they stopped by to tell him. Hunter was so gung ho he gathered what little personal items he had, along with weapons, and got in the back of the buggy. Coming in just shy of sounding like a child and saying. “Can we leave?”
They brought Matthew one of the vehicles from the DC lab. So he and the others could venture out.
Matthew was grateful and invited John and Meredith back, he also told them that since Hunter regularly sought after Night Stalkers, that there was no better sense of protection.
Meredith realized they’d certainly get to know Hunter a lot better. He was curious and funny in his own right. Like a six year old, every mile they journeyed was accompanied by Hunter pointing and saying things, reading signs.
It surprised them both how much he comprehended and the fact that he could read.
“Pa … turnpike,” Hunter said.
“Pennsylvania turnpike,” Meredith explained. “This is the state of Pennsylvania. All territories were named, just like they named the towns.”
“Breeze … wood. Funny names.”
John replied, “I am sure they had reasons for naming places. I mean, you can call one area where you live Big tree, or Crater village.”
“John,” Meredith laughed.
Hunter’s marked curiosity also told them, while he read, his reading materials were limited as well as his knowledge of history.
That was when John came up with an idea.
“We don’t plan to go by there.”
“We can,” John said. “So what, it will add a few hours to our journey. We’ll still get to Champaign tomorrow.”
“What if it’s not there?”
“It’s not directly in the city, it’s not near a river, so little moisture damage. It has to be.”
“I went to school in that city,” Meredith said. “It would be interesting to go there.”
Reset (Book 2): Salvation Page 12