“We should help everyone who needs it,” said the woman in workout clothes.
“Are you going to give them your share of the food?” Larry asked. “Which one of your kids are you willing to go hungry so you can help some stranger?”
“If we don’t look out for each other, then we’ll never survive,” she explained.
Larry said, “That’s right. Each other. Us.” He held his arms open to indicate to everyone sitting around. “The people here that you see around you.”
Rachel said, “I think we should try to leave. Maybe there is help in Austin.”
Ethan offered, “I’ll do that for you. I’m going to Austin anyway. If there is help there, then I’ll let them know that you are here.”
They paused for a moment. Then Peter spoke to the group, “He’s right. We’ve been assuming that someone will come and help if we just wait long enough. Maybe no one is going to come. But maybe it’s because they don’t know we’re here.”
The woman in expensive clothes said, “They know. We all called on the first day. After…” Her voice trailed off as she decided not to revisit that topic. “I know I told my husband where I was. A bunch of us told our families where we are. No one has even called back.”
Ethan perked up. “Do the phones work? I mean, the old phones?”
Rachel nodded to him. “Yes, we’ve been trying to call out, but no one has gotten through.”
“Can I try? I want to try and call my mom.”
She agreed to lead him back to one of the offices while the others continued to argue and discuss their plans. Once she found a flashlight, they moved further into the back of the store. It was pitch black with no windows and no light coming in from the front. She led him to one of the offices.
It was very plain with a cheap desk and office chair. A paper calendar sat on the desk with the Cabela’s logo on it. Children had scribbled all over it with markers. The phone was on the desk, and Rachel checked it to make sure it still worked.
“You just have to press nine to get an outside line. I’m not even sure if people are getting messages. But if the phones work, then that means someone has power, right? Good luck.” She squeezed his shoulder before she left the flashlight with him. Then she used her hand to follow the wall in the darkness and back out to the rest of the group. Ethan thought he heard someone shouting.
He held the receiver to his ear and felt anticipation build as he heard the dial tone. He dialed nine, and then his mother’s number. As it rang, he wondered if she would answer. He wondered if she would be happy to hear from him. He wondered if she had been drinking. He wondered which mother would answer the phone.
Please, come home, sweetie.
Get your lazy ass home, right now!
After several rings, her voice mail came on, and Ethan listened to her old, happy message. The image she projected to the world.
“Hi, Mom. It's me again.” He paused as he wasn’t sure what to say next. “I’m on my way home. I’m in Buda now, and I’ll spend the night here. But I found a bike! So, I should be home soon. Maybe tomorrow night. Then we’ll be together, and I’ll be able to help you. I don’t know if you’re getting these messages. My phone is broken so, if you’re trying to call me, then I haven’t heard from you. I hope you are safe. I hope the storm last night didn’t scare you. I know how you—”
The phone beeped as the voice mail cut him off. He looked at the receiver and thought about calling again. But he didn’t know what else to say. At least, he thought, if she gets these messages, then she’ll know that he hadn’t forgotten about her. He hung up the phone and used the flashlight to return to the others.
They were shouting.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
As he walked down the hallway from the back offices, Ethan could hear many of the people shouting at each other. Larry was complaining that people were willing to wait for someone to come and rescue them instead of working for survival.
A woman Ethan didn’t recognize accused Larry of being lazy and just using guard duty to get out of helping to clean up the store. A couple of men were arguing over the best way to ration out food while another pair were complaining about some of the people who snore all night.
Another woman cried because she didn’t have her medications, and she couldn’t handle all of the stress. Something in her voice reminded Ethan of his mother.
As he exited the hallway and turned off the flashlight, he heard a voice from behind.
“Did you get through?” It was the girl in the denim shorts. She leaned against the wall, away from the arguing adults and seemed to be waiting for him. Her voice was a bit higher than Ethan expected.
She sounded more like a little girl, but he thought it made her sound cute. She smiled brightly at him, and her eyes looked at him expectantly.
“Oh. Uh…no. I just left a message.” He got that warm feeling again and avoided looking into her face in case she noticed.
She shrugged a little, and her smile faded somewhat. “Oh, well. That’s what’s happened to all of us. I think a few people were able to reach someone earlier.”
Ethan nodded to her but wasn’t sure what to say next. An awkward silence grew up between them as he tried to think of something to say that might impress her.
She leaned forward towards him. “Hey! Weren’t you going to get some stuff? We’ve got a lot.”
“Yeah. I need some supplies before I leave. Do you think anyone would care if I spent the night here?”
Her smile brightened again at the question. “No! You should totally stay here. We’ve got lots of space. No one will even notice. Oh, my name is Ashley.”
He smiled at her. “Hi, I’m Ethan.” He held out his hand for her to shake and immediately realized how lame that was.
She giggled a little, which made him feel better. When her hand touched his, he got that same warm feeling again. But there was something deeper there that felt right, though he didn’t understand it.
“I know. They said your name earlier,” she said as she held his hand a little longer than a simple handshake. “What kind of stuff do you need? I can show you where everything is.”
He looked around at the store, though he couldn’t see much in the darkened room. “Well, I need a backpack, some food and water, and a knife. All I have is this screwdriver.”
She smiled as she tugged at his over-sized T-shirt. “And some new clothes. These are all dirty.”
She walked past him and into the store. Ethan followed her and noticed how nice her legs looked in her denim shorts.
The first stop was in the knife section. Most knives were missing, and those that remained were designed to look scary, but really didn’t function well.
Ethan found a solid hunting knife that he felt would be good as a tool or a weapon. It had one sharp edge and a strong spine with a full tang. It wasn’t as good for fighting as the knife he took off the dead raider. But that one was designed to kill as quickly and efficiently as possible. This knife was as much of a tool as a weapon.
Then she took him far into the back of the store where the camouflage clothing was kept. Unlike the camouflage of the soldiers, these clothes were for hunters to blend into the trees and brush. A big fight had happened back there. Many of the racks and displays were knocked over, and the clothes were scattered around in piles. No one considered it important enough to clean these up yet. Ethan knelt and searched for pants, a shirt, and a coat that would fit him.
While they were picking through a pile of pants searching for his size, Ashley said, “You know, you’re the first person who seems to know what is going on.”
“Oh, I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know why any of this is happening.”
“But you thought of how we could make this place more secure. You’re going out there while the rest of us are just hiding in here. That’s pretty cool.”
He pretended to look for clothes while he tried to think of a response. Ethan never liked being complimented. He didn’
t know how to react. He certainly wasn’t used to girls complimenting him at all.
She continued, “Some of them still think the Army is going to fly in and rescue us all. But you know that’s not going to happen.”
Ethan felt that something in her tone was more matter of fact. He felt that she knew, just as well as he did that the world had changed and the rules of the old world didn’t apply anymore. He wondered if she had seen things like he had and that’s how she was so certain.
“No. I don’t think anyone can rescue anyone else.”
They both stayed silent while searching through the clothes. Ethan eventually found some that he thought would fit him. Ashley showed him where the fitting rooms were so he could try them on. She waited in the darkened room outside the door.
“So, you’re going to Austin? I’m from Austin, too. Where do you go to school?”
He fumbled around in the dark to get out of his dirty jeans. They were the same jeans he wore on the first day. Dirt, sweat, and rain soaked into the worn denim. He had to peel them off his legs.
“Westlake High School. I’m a Sophomore.”
“Really? I thought you would be a senior. I go to Bowie. I’m a junior. At least I was. I guess there’s no more school.”
“I liked school. Well, most of it. I liked science classes.”
“I was never good at science. Art was my favorite.”
Ethan slipped on the new clothes. He couldn’t believe he was having a real conversation with her. She was probably the prettiest girl he had ever talked to. And she was a junior, too!
Older girls almost never paid attention to guys in younger grades. Most girls never paid attention to him at all. The most he ever got was when he kissed Whitney Ekler in 7th grade. And he always thought that she just let him because she felt sorry for him.
He stepped out of the fitting room. The new pants rustled a little when he walked in them but, otherwise, they fit well.
He was surprised at how much lighter they felt after wearing heavy blue jeans for days. He took one of the camouflage backpacks off the wall before Ashley showed him to the archery section.
This section wasn’t looted at all. Ashley shone the flashlight over the racks of crossbows, bows, arrows, and all of the accessories that usually come with archery hunting. “Pretty cool, huh? I bet you know how to use this stuff, right?”
Ethan stopped her hand when the light hit one of the bows. It was a simple recurve bow without all of the cams and strings that come with a compound bow. But the limbs of this bow could be detached so the whole thing would fit inside a backpack.
He took it down off the wall, strung it, and checked to see if he could pull it back. It was a little heavy, but he thought that he would get used to it. He found a quiver with a cap, loaded it with arrows, and strapped it to the backpack.
Ashley shone the flashlight on him. “Now you look like you’re ready to go.”
“Well, I just need a few more things from the camping section, and then I should be ready.”
Together, they went upstairs to the camping section. Ethan could smell food cooking, and Rachel smiled and waved to him while she played with a couple of small children in the toys section. She watched as Ethan and Ashley went back to the dark camping section.
Ethan found a good pair of binoculars, remembering how useful they were on the first day. There was also a metal water bottle and water filters that meant he wouldn’t be reliant on bottled water anymore.
He also took a sturdy compass and a paper map of Texas. Ashley watched with quiet interest as he studied the map to plot out a course back to his house in southwest Austin. Now, he could get off the highway and get straight home without worrying about getting lost.
With a bit of dried food in his backpack, Ethan felt like he could travel across the country if he needed to.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
By the time he had gotten everything he had needed together and plotted out a course back home, dinner was ready. Ashley didn’t join him as her father, a portly, balding middle-aged man wearing a Polo shirt from an electronics supply store, wanted her to eat with him.
Her father had slept most of the day and missed all of the news and discussions from earlier. Ethan could hear Ashley explaining it all to him.
Rachel, Peter, and Karen all sat with other people who had been staying at the store. It seemed that they were still trying to come to some resolution on how to proceed. Ethan, being an outsider, was left to eat on his own. It was hamburgers again, and he didn’t mind at all.
He thought it was strange that some people seemed to be relieved when it was announced that this was the last of the hamburgers. They seemed to be tired of eating hamburgers all of the time. He wondered how much they would like pork and beans. Or nothing.
He ate alone and watched the crowd. Occasionally, he would see Rachel or Karen looking at him as if they were trying to decide something. But then again, many people would look at him out of the corners of their eyes. He was new, a stranger, an unknown quantity in a world full of unknowns. Ashley looked at him at times and smiled, but her father frowned at him.
The heaviness of the food and his tired legs made him drowsy soon after eating. He decided to remain alone and went downstairs to find a place to sleep for the night. He went into a large room adjacent to the main open area of the store where most of the people slept. Few people slept there as it was where the store displayed animals that had been stuffed and mounted in small scenes of their native habitats.
The light of his flashlight glinted off their glass eyes in the darkness as he spread out a sleeping bag to lay on. Only a few other people slept on the far side of the room. With the flashlight off and no outside light sources, the room was quite dark, and he soon fell asleep.
He became aware of a light approaching him. He wasn’t sure how long he had been asleep, and he didn’t remember a dream. He rolled over and saw that the light was from a dim flashlight, which turned off before he could tell who held it. He thought he saw the outline of a slim female build and long hair.
He mumbled at the person, “What…who?”
She laid next to him on his sleeping bag and pressed a soft finger against his lips. “Shh.” Then she kissed him.
This was no awkward fumbling kiss in middle school. This was a passionate kiss. Ethan’s surprise quickly switched to excitement as he felt her soft tongue slide into his mouth. He had never done anything like this before and just followed her lead. He closed his eyes though he couldn’t see her in the dark anyway.
Their lips kissed, and their tongues moved over each other as she slid her hand over his chest and arms and eventually down his stomach. He was instantly hard; harder than he had ever felt in his young life.
His breathing quickened as he felt her hand slide down and into his pants. He gasped into her mouth as he felt her fingers wrap around his erection, squeezing and stroking.
After a few moments of this, she broke the kiss and moved to get on top of him. He whispered, “Who are—” But she cut him off by putting her fingers over his mouth as she straddled his hips.
Ethan’s heart raced as he realized he was finally going to have sex. He didn’t know who she was but, at the moment, he didn’t care. Any hesitation he might have had evaporated when he felt himself sliding into her. It all felt so good. He didn’t want to stop any of it.
He couldn’t see her, but he could feel her rising up and down, slowly sliding on his full length. They struggled to keep quiet so others wouldn’t hear them as they both gasped and groaned.
She took his hands and placed them on her firm breasts. Ethan had never felt anything like this and was encouraged to do more as she used his hands to squeeze her breasts.
She leaned down to kiss him again as her hips rose and fell on him. The memory of the raider by the creek flashed into his mind, and he shifted his weight to roll her over so now he was on top. She giggled softly as he took charge, and then groaned as he thrust into her with more force. She
clapped her hands over her mouth to muffle her moans.
Ethan focused on how good this all felt. He had no idea who she was. Images of Madison, Ashley, and even a few celebrities came to his mind. At that moment, the woman under him might be any of them.
He continued, burying his face into her shoulder to muffle his moans until he felt the build-up. A little voice told him that he might get her pregnant. An older, more powerful voice drove him onward.
She must have been able to feel it because just as he was ready to explode, her hands grabbed his hips and pulled him into her until they both felt his release inside. The feeling was so intense that he could barely make a sound. Only a small squeak escaped his open mouth.
Once he felt the climax subside, and his normal thoughts returned, he realized that he was still on top of her and was afraid that he was too heavy. He rolled off and, for a moment, they laid there in silence, slowly catching their breath.
Ethan whispered, “I can’t see you. Who are you?”
She rolled over onto her side with her back to him. “Shhh.”
Now he was truly exhausted. Even the intensity of losing his virginity couldn’t keep him awake, and he stroked her soft body until he finally fell asleep again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The dream felt different. It felt like he was awake, but watching the world through someone else’s eyes. His vision was hazy. He could see movement around him, but no distinct shapes. He felt that he was moving down though he was free from gravity.
It was night. Men walked with torches, the flickering flames cast confusing orange shapes and long shadows. They walked on grass that had been trampled into mud. Around them were the remnants of a camp. Brightly colored fabrics were tossed carelessly about and covered in mud. And blood.
He couldn’t see where he was. His view shifted to a door. A padlock prevented it from opening. Standing outside of the door was another man, a raider, who leaned against the wall next to the door. He was nearly asleep.
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