“Horn dogs,” Dustin told her as they walked away, laughing with each other and holding hands as they went.
“Horn dogs?” Conner asked.
“I don't know about you but I am no horn dog,” Janna Adams joked as she passed by.
The thought of prim and proper Janna Adams making a statement like that caused everyone to crack up. Janna stopped, a shocked look on her face.
“Good one, Jan,” Katie said.
“I can't believe I said that,” Janna said.
Everyone cracked up then, including Janna Adams.
~Evening~
Katie lay in the crook of Conner's arm as they talked quietly.
“Gotta go in about five minutes,” Conner told her. “My watch.”
“No,” Katie said. “You can't go if you can't get out of bed. Besides, we paid for the room for the night,” she finished and laughed.
Conner chuckled. “This is nice. Privacy, first we've had in... well, forever.”
“When we leave, we'll be back to getting none at all again,” Katie told him. She snuggled against his side, one hand resting against the flat of his stomach, her index finger drawing small circles. “But,” she lifted her eyes to his. “I guess I have to let you go. Just think about that alone time for later.” She kissed him softly. “Something to keep you thinking about it.” She turned away, swung her feet to the floor and began to get dressed.
“You do give me things to think about,” Conner told her. He trailed his fingers down her back, bent forward and kissed her shoulder.
Katie looked back at him. “Do you want to make that watch?”
Conner laughed. “No, but I have no choice at all.” He leaned forward and kissed her mouth. “Later,” he said.
“Later,” She agreed.
~
The room had not been in bad shape. It was funny how fate could be, Conner had thought. One wing flattened, one untouched. From sleeping in a factory a day ago, to sleeping in a real bed the next.
The room was dusty, a slight musty, unused odor, but dry. The roof had held up. The walls seemed untouched.
“Where are you going?” Conner asked.
“With you.”
“You're not on, Babe,” Conner grinned.
“Correction. I wasn't on. You had Amy on, but she wanted to spend time with Aaron, so we switched. That way, when we're done, we can come back here again...” She cocked her eyebrows. “And take our time?”
“What, not be rushed?” Conner asked.
She stood and turned into him as he was getting ready to leave. A beautiful woman wearing only a pair of white socks, which was all she had managed to get on. She stretched up onto her tip toes and kissed him. His hands pulled her close. She pulled away with a smile.
“I thought you were coming with me,” Conner said.
“I am,” She giggled.
He reached for her once more, but she skipped away. “We'll never get there, baby,” she told him.
“As it is, I'll probably be thinking about you throughout the whole watch and waiting to get back here. God, Katie, you're so beautiful.”
She looked at him seriously. “Keep that up and we'll never get out of this room.” She crossed the short distance between them and kissed him once more. “Say it just once more?”
“You're beautiful,” Conner told her as he pulled her close.
~
It was about an hour and a half past sunset when Conner took over one of the perimeter guard posts from Susan. It was simply the far corner of the garage complex that overlooked a field and the highway beyond it.
“Quiet?” He asked.
“Pretty much. The dog... what's that dog's name anyway?” she asked.
“He doesn't have one,” Conner admitted. “We, uh... we just call him The Dog, you know. He survived. He got through it same as us; he made it, you know. He's The Dog.” Conner finished lamely.
“Oh. Sounds like a little guilt there, Conner. Maybe we should all get together and name it,” Susan suggested.
Conner nodded.
“Well, anyway... The Dog kept looking off towards the highway. He didn't, like, bark or anything. I thought maybe deer, cows, something else. But with the meat drying, it could have drawn anything at all. The fires and so many people should be enough to keep anything away. Even if it's wolves, they'll probably stay away, right? I just thought you should know about it.”
Conner nodded. “Could be something, but you're probably right. Most likely it's nothing. I imagine the smell of the meat will draw every carnivore in the area. That's okay as long as they don't try to bother us. There will be plenty of scraps when we're gone.”
Susan nodded this time. “Conner,” she hesitated and Conner nodded for her to continue. “Well, I wondered what you thought about Jan and James's idea of settling in the wilderness. You know, deep in the middle of nowhere.”
Conner nodded slowly. “I think they really want to do it. I think they really believe in it, Susan,” he shrugged. Her eyes questioned him. “Okay... and... And I wish I could believe in it they way they do. Not that I believe it won't work. I think anything we do will take hard work, a good deal of hard work,” he shrugged again. “And I think they'll put the work in, I really do. Maybe you're asking me what I want to do, and I can't tell you that. I don't know... I haven't decided. It's something Katie and I would have to take the time to sit down and decide, and we just haven't had the time to do that.”
“You know, in my head the old world was selfish. It was all about selfish. The Me generation? Something like that. And I'm not saying I was any better. I wasn’t. Oh, I had my friends, and I helped them when I could, but when it came down to push or shove, it was me. It was me, and a lot of the people I knew, worked for, with, associated with, were the same way. Social on the surface, but scratch that surface and it's a different story. Push or shove... and not an overly hard push or shove either.” He looked at her and Susan nodded.
“At least for me it's been that way. I guess I sound cynical. But it's not that way anymore. I'm not that way anymore. It's not about me. It's about me and Katie. And it really isn't about us either. It's deeper. There are people here I've really come to care about. I mean really care about. Do you realize that I haven't watched T.V. Since the night this all started? Sounds ridiculous, right? None of us have, but I did computer work. Scripting, C, C ++, graphics, more. I used to turn my computer on, turn on the T.V. for company and go to work. Eighteen hours sometimes, even longer on occasion. It... that... was my life. No relationships. No one to really care about. No time for it. And everyone I knew was the same way. Superficial. Shallow? Yeah, that too. Well... I don't do that anymore; I don't want to.”
Susan nodded. “Everyone I knew was too busy living to think about how they were living,” she said.
“That I do understand,” Conner said. “But not now, you know, somewhere, in some secure building, on some secure server I have a couple of bank accounts that were well over a million dollars each.” He laughed. “All means nothing now, Susan, nothing. I am happy with what I have. I don't want what I used to have.” He sighed.
“The middle of nowhere? Probably a great idea. I can think of only a few things that I could do that would matter as much to me as that does to them. Kids... love... Katie, you know? Do it right, not like the old world. And that's the rub. It depends on Katie... and the baby. She's trying to get pregnant. It seems like almost everyone is.” He rubbed the flat of his palm along his jaw feeling the stubble that was softening into a beard. “If she wanted to do it, yes. If she wanted to travel to Alaska, yes. When the time comes, and it's probably not all that far away in the scheme of things, but when the time comes for James and those that have committed to go with them, and those that will - I know there will be more - when that time comes, if Katie wants to go with them, I'll jump in with both feet. That's the truth of it.”
Susan's eyes were misted. “Thank you,” she said.
“Thank you for being long winded and ent
irely too personal on short notice?” Conner asked.
Susan laughed. “No, for being honest. I think I'm going to go have a talk with a young lady. I'll see you later, Conner,” she said. She smiled and then walked off into the shadows of the night.
Conner watched her go. Apparently everyone was more appreciative of people now, not just himself, he thought. He turned his attention to the field and the highway. After his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he could see the dark shapes of cattle grazing in the field, a few deer mixed in with them.
He thought about what he had just said, how much he felt for Katie. How for the next few nights they would have a real bed. His mind filled with thoughts of her. He almost missed the radio call, almost wrote it off as one of their own, until he realized it wasn't.
~
“Hello the camp,” the voice repeated.
Conner unclasped the radio from his belt and raised it to his mouth and spoke. “I guess you mean us,” he said more calmly than he felt.
“I do,” the voice answered. “We've been traveling. Saw your fires from about five miles back. I guess the question is, are you okay? If you've been living in the same world that we've been living in, I guess you'll understand that question.”
Conner keyed the mic. button and let the smooth static play out for a few seconds before he spoke. “You must have stopped quite a way back. We didn't hear the sound of your vehicles.”
“We did. Like I said, it's a funny world. Listen... we kind of wanted to feel you out. I'm Jeff... Jeff Simmons,” he finished.
“Conner... Conner Davis,” Conner told him. “I understand your point. We've been through a few things too. Do you want to come in?”
“Well... we do but we're stopped now for the night. In the morning? Would the morning be okay with you?”
“That will work. I... I guess breakfast will be on us,” Conner told him. “You know where we're at?”
“Yeah, we do,” Jeff told him. “I sent a couple of scouts down. It looks like a little build up off the interstate... No actual town or anything. We're a couple of miles back. But we can see the light of the fires from here.”
“I would've sent scouts too,” Conner allowed. “It's about like you imagine, a wide place in the road. Garage... Motel... A few chain stores. It looks like it all built up around the truck stop diner that's also here. There's plenty of gas here, plenty of supplies also,” Conner finished.
“That's good to hear, Conner. We swung down from Vermont. We're all from there. We've been avoiding the cities as best we can, trying to get out West... somewhere where we don't have to worry about winters,” he said.
“I hear that. We're in the same boat here, only heading South. Or at least right now we are. I guess we're still undecided where we'll end up. We're pretty heavily armed, Jeff. I guess you'll see that when you come in tomorrow. We've been through some stuff as well. I won't apologize for the weapons,” Conner finished.
“Don't need to. We're loaded too. I don't exactly like it, but it's the way life is now. I... Well... I couldn't come in unarmed, Conner. I couldn't. I'm sure you see that.”
“I understand that,” Conner told him. “And I'm sure you know we'll be on the defensive for the first little while ourselves. I don't like it either, but same as you, I do what I have to... we do. We've got some good people here, Jeff, good people, and we're careful.”
“Us too. Well... there's eight of us, Conner. I don't like to give away numbers, but you'll know soon enough anyway. We'll be eight in the morning.”
“Sixteen of us here, Jeff.” Conner told him.
“Wow. No wonder you got so many fires going. We wondered about that.”
“Yeah, well, some of it is the people, but we're smoking meat to take with us. There are cows and deer everywhere. We figured we might as well get some fresh meat while we can. Beats the hell out of stuff from a can.”
“You'll have to show us how to do that. We don't have anyone who knows how to do that. I don't think we even have a hunter of any kind either,” Jeff said. “I can shoot, but I've never hunted.”
Conner laughed. “We're all learning to do new things,” He said. “And we're lucky to have some people with us that do know how to do those things.”
The radio hissed silence for a while.
“Well, Conner, it was good to talk to you, and we'll see you in the morning,” Jeff said.
“Okay, Jeff. Same here. And I meant that about breakfast, so come hungry,” Conner said.
“Will do,” Jeff said. “Out.”
“We're out too,” Conner said. He clipped the radio back to his belt. He thought about making love to Katie. How she had swapped time with Amy to make it all work out so Amy and Aaron would have time together too. He thought about how he was going to have to wake James, Jake and Aaron... Amy as well. Well, he realized, most of the camp. Hell all the camp except the two kids. The V.H.F. Squawked as he was thinking. Katie calling for him.
“Yeah,” he said.
“I'll help you get them all up,” she told him.
“Thank you, Babe. Tell them it won't be overly long. They can go back to sleep after we talk.”
“Okay, Babe. Out,” Katie said and giggled.
Conner's face broke into a grin.
“Uh, Babe. You need anymore help?” Lilly's voice came through.
“Okay,” Conner laughed. “You can go wake up a few as well. And, Lilly?”
“Yeah?” she asked.
“I'll want you there too,” Conner said.
“Um... Okay, Conner. I'll go help Katie,” she told him, sounding flustered.
~
As it turned out Conner was able to keep the meeting short, in the end there was not a lot to say or to discuss. They asked a few questions, made plans to be up early in the morning and then everyone went back to bed.
FOUR
Conner and Katie
April 20th
Smoke from the many fires hung close to the ground mixing with a heavy mist that had risen off the nearby river and painted the fields white into the far treeline. As the sun touched the edge of the horizon, soft red-gold light began to flood into the world, reflecting off the ground mist, lighting it from within.
Conner could feel the heat on his face as he sat drinking coffee with Katie, Dustin, Aaron and Amy. James and Janna sat close by. The rest of the camp was up and waiting with them.
Janna had organized some helpers, and a breakfast that included cold meat from the evening meal, oatmeal cooked in a huge pot she had salvaged from somewhere, and something that was a cross between a biscuit and a pancake. She was cooking on a large rectangular cast iron grill that Conner and Aaron had taken from one of the fast food restaurants and set up for her. The resulting thick pancakes, or thin biscuits, depending on your viewpoint, could be used to make sandwiches of the cold meat or drowned with honey or Maple syrup from one of the nearby stores. Conner had tried it both ways and some oatmeal as well. He had eaten two thick sandwiches. He couldn't remember any time in his life where he had consistently eaten the way he did now. His body just seemed to crave and use more calories than it ever had.
As he looked around, he realized he wasn't the only one. Everyone seemed to be able to put the food away, yet everyone seemed to be thinning down, dropping the excess weight they had once carried. He himself had noticed that the few extra pounds he had once carried were gone. His stomach had not been as flat as it was now since junior high school. Maybe not even then, he admitted to himself. He sipped at his coffee and watched the sun rise across the fields, burning the mist away as it rose.
Jeff Simmons had called on the radio some fifteen minutes earlier to let them know his party was on the way. The whole camp was waiting, including Brian and Janelle. Even Jake, James, Molly and Nell who had had their day all planned out were hanging around, waiting for the newcomers to come into camp. It seemed everyone had changed their plans to wait.
“You waiting also?” Conner had asked Brian as he wandered by him
.
He nodded solemnly. “I want to see the new kids.”
“Might not be any new kids,” Conner told him.
“Oh,” Brian said. He looked worried about it for a few seconds. “Nellie said there would.”
Nellie meant Janelle, his constant companion, one year older. Looked like she was a God to him, because she knew so many things that Brian didn't.
“Well, if Nellie says so,” Conner allowed.
Brian nodded. “She's really smart.”
“She is. Most girls are,” Conner said seriously.
“All of us are,” Katie said leaning in. She planted a kiss on his cheek, making Brian giggle.
The Dog wandered by looking for handouts. He seemed a little put out that he wasn't getting all the handouts he felt he deserved. He stopped in his wandering, looked towards the interstate, stiffened his posture, and gave a little woof. He turned and looked at Conner, his lower lip pulled back slightly from his bottom teeth, his head tilted at an angle as if to ask, Did you hear that?
Conner patted his leg. The Dog wagged his tail, came over to Conner, allowed his hand to fall on his back and scratch there, but kept his attention focused on the highway in the near distance. Conner scratched him under the chin too, patted his head and told him he was a good dog. He woofed once more and then sat down, content to wait along with everyone else.
A few minutes later the sounds of the vehicles came to Conner's ears as well. The Dog's ears were perked now, his body tense with excitement.
“Good dog,” Conner said and patted his head once more. “Well,” he said to the others close by, “Looks like our company is almost here.”
A half minute later, three Hummers came into view running on the side of the interstate. Conner raised his radio from his side. “That's you then, Jeff?”
The lead Hummer flashed its lights and then set off on a diagonal across the field headed for the small complex of buildings where Conner and the others waited.
“It is, Conner,” Jeff answered. His voice was loud and clear from the radio's small speaker, seeming to jump out into the air.
Earth's Survivors: box set Page 54