Earth's Survivors: box set

by Wendell Sweet

  “Mine are shot too,” Cindy said. She held them up and examined them. They were starting to callus but she had not been playing long enough for good thick pads to build up on the tips of her fingers.

  “And my lips are shot,” Lilly said. She looked at Katie daring her to make a smart remark.

  “What,” Katie asked. “You think I would take a cheap shot like that? Like, 'Oh, your lips are frozen in an Oh!' or ...” Lilly gave her a shot in the shoulder and they all laughed.

  Amy came over from where she had been talking to one of the newcomers whose name Katie could never remember, Janey, or Jeanie, something like that. A young, pretty girl. But she tended to stay away from Katie.

  “You have to teach me how to play,” Amy said.

  “Most of it is these calluses,” she held up the tips of her fingers. The tips were callused, but even so there were grooves in them from the strings.

  “Doesn't that hurt?” Amy asked.

  Katie turned them around and looked at them. “Nope. Used to, but the callus pads are thick. Doesn't hurt at all. The grooves will be gone in an hour or so.”

  Amy took Katie's fingers and brushed them against her own cheek. “Hard,” she said. “Rough.” She met Katie's eyes and held them. She still held her hand in her own.

  “Here,” Katie said. She pulled Amy to her and sat her down in front of her. She handed her, her own guitar, one she and James had made, and pulled Amy into her. She reached around her, took her hand and formed it into the proper position for a C Major on the guitar's fret-board. She took her other hand and strummed the strings with it. “See?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Amy said quietly. Her voice was low, breathy.

  Katie bent her head to look at her. Their faces just inches apart. “You okay?” she asked.

  Amy smiled. “Yes... More than okay... Show me more, Kate.”

  Katie took her hand and reset the chord position with her fingers. Then had her strum. The chord came out muted and buzzy sounding. “Tent your fingers... Like Cindy's.” Beside her Cindy showed her the chord and then strummed it.

  Amy laughed, leaning back into Katie. “Mine doesn't sound that nice.” She looked closer at Cindy's hand.

  “Tent it like Cindy's hand is, See?” Katie took her fingers, bent them slightly. “Push harder too.” The chord came out much clearer. Amy laughed again.

  “You'll show me how to do it better?” she asked Katie. She lifted her face up to Katie's own, their noses nearly touching. Cindy turned away, a little embarrassed by the thought that had just jumped into her head, and watched the flames leap from the fire that burned in the middle of the room.

  “Practice, practice,” she heard Katie say behind her.

  “But you'll show me?” Amy asked.

  “Aim, I just did... But I'll show you more... Spend some time with you... To show you.” Katie's voice was low and throaty. The same way she sang, Cindy thought. She turned back, still a little embarrassed. Her own mind sometimes created things that could not be true, she told herself. She had thought... Never mind, she told herself. Just never mind what you thought.

  Amy's face was a little red. They had moved apart, but they were still looking at each other strangely. Cindy spoke, “I'll show you too. It's not that hard... The hardest thing is getting the calluses to build up... Waiting through that part of it.”

  Katie cleared her throat and addressed James who sat nearby.

  “James. Have you ever heard of cat gut strings,” she asked.

  “Yes... But of course they are not really made of cat gut. Usually they are made of calf skin... The inner lining of the stomach... It's very thin, but, they could also be made from actual gut, stomach too. Cow, calf... Probably cat too, I suppose... Sorry, why?” he asked.

  “You answered it... These steel strings won't last forever, and I was wondering what we'd have for an alternative,” she said.

  “Nylon,” James said. “And we have a lot of that in all gauges too.”

  “Jeez Louise, nylon,” Katie said. “I should have thought of that. They use that on classical guitars... Sometimes metal wound too, but nylon.”

  “Also gut strings on classical as well,” James said.

  “Really?”

  “Yep. It's not used like it used to be... Or it wasn't used like it had once been used,” James corrected. “Sometimes I forget it's all gone away. It wasn't used as much in this country, but in many countries it was still the material of choice... It has a very different sound than steel or nylon.”

  “I thought only violins used it,” Lilly said.

  “Nope... They do, or did, still do I guess, but classical guitarists liked it as well... Used it instead of nylon.”

  “Well, how hard would it be to make,” Katie asked.

  “Ah. That is the question. We'd have to play around a little, but I bet we could figure it out easily enough. Figure the gauge, what produces the pitch you need. I could build a jig once we figured it out so I could cut it the same time after time... Even make it round too,” he smiled and raised his head from the floor where it had sunken as he thought, working it out in his head. “A little playing around, pun intended, and we'd have it. Then it would be no big deal to do it on a regular basis” He paused for a moment. “I really like your music, Katie,” he told her. “I like the way you did that song... A Minor was it? And that other one, Stones Across The Water... Yeah. You have a beautiful voice.” He turned to Cindy.

  “I had no idea how beautiful your voice was. Where did you learn to sing,” he asked.

  “I didn't. I just sang along with the radio... Like anyone, I guess. But I like Katie's voice... I think our voices compliment each other.”

  “You got that right,” Craig said. He had been sitting listening.

  “Yeah,” Amy agreed. “I like that song too... It's about someone in prison, right?”

  “Two kinds of prison... Like a prison in their head is what I get from it... Doing time for the things that have already passed in your life,” Katie said.

  Amy nodded. “And your songs are about us. Our life here... I like your lyrics too... You could have done something in the old world, seriously.”

  “I thought about it. I just didn't want it bad enough to crawl through all the mud you have to crawl through.” She shrugged. “I write better stuff now too. I like what I write now, and I didn't always before,” Katie finished.

  ELEVEN

  Conner

  On The Road

  They came upon Lisa first. She was sprawled less than fifty feet from the truck she had left in that morning. The truck was a burned out wreck. There were charred bones in the wreckage. The heavy, greasy odor of burned pork hung in the air, along with the smell of burned plastic and hot steel. The wreckage was too hot to get very close to. The bones could have been one person. It could have been more.

  Lisa lay nude in the tall grass. A dried crust of blood at her mouth. A small blue hole in her forehead.

  Josh immediately choked up and began to cry. Dustin swore, cried too, and then took off his coat and covered her with it. Chloe turned to ice, as did Conner. The smile she had been wearing for the last few days gone. Her anger just below the surface, barely contained. Visible. There was no question then that they were in it.

  Conner raised his eyes to the tree line and saw the dead shifting in and out of the shadows. They had not been at her yet, but they would be: If they could not turn her she would simply be food. Beside him Chloe's eyes came up and locked on the wood line as well.

  “No fuckin' way,” she whispered. It was nearly too low to hear it. She thumbed her safety off. Conner began to speak, but realized he had also thumbed his own safety off and was moving deliberately across the field toward the trees.

  “You can't fuckin' have her,” Chloe screamed. Her machine pistol came up and she began to spray the trees. A second later Conner found that his own pistol was up and firing. Dustin beside him. Josh off to one side. His face gray, ashen, his pistol jumping in his hands.<
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  The dead that had ventured out of the trees began to fall, and Conner found himself running at the tree line as Chloe and the others were. A few short seconds later and it was over. The dead that had not managed to flee lay on the ground. They stood for a second and then walked back to the trucks where they still sat idling in the sunlight.

  Chloe and Conner picked up Lisa's body and settled it into the back of Chloe's truck. A minute later they were tearing down the road toward the sound of the gunfire that came to them loudly on the wind now.

  Ten short minutes later they were at the edge of whatever was still going on. Ahead, an unfamiliar truck was cross-way in the road. Four people crouched behind it, firing at something further up the road.

  Chloe and Conner both sighted through their scopes. “That has got to be the bad guys,” Conner said. He looked over at Chloe.

  “Ain’t nobody we know,” Chloe said tightly.

  “Get behind the truck,” Conner said to Dustin and Josh. To Chloe: “I'm taking the two on the right, you take the two on the left.” He laid down on the road. Propped his elbows up to hold his rifle and sighted. “On you,” he told her.

  Chloe shifted slightly. “Say when,” she whispered.

  “When,” Conner said tightly.

  Conner's first shot hit the man on the far right in the back. The man next to him, believing the shot had come from the front, jumped up and began firing into the distance past the truck, but before Conner could take him out a shot from somewhere else took him down. He turned to Chloe's second man, she had already dropped the first man, and they both fired at once.

  His head exploded, and the glass of the rear window he had been standing in front of blew inward. The shots ricocheted back to them and then the silence came hard and stayed.

  “Chloe,” Conner whispered after a while.

  “Yeah?” Her voice was still tight. Strained. They had both been looking through their scopes.

  “You see anything? Anything at all?”

  “Nada,” she said softly. “Goddamn truck's in the way.”

  Conner nodded to himself. “Alright... I'm going to stand up and walk down there... I'd say cover me, but I guess I'll be a sitting duck.” He stood and looked down the road past the truck. The view was no better. The truck in front of them was on a slight rise, or the road dipped just past the truck, either way there was little to see.

  “You guys alright back there,” Conner asked.

  “Yeah,” Dustin’s voice.

  “Good,” Josh added.

  He cleared his throat. “I'm going to walk closer and then I'm going to call to them...” He waited a second, and then walked a few hundred yards forward to where he thought he would be within shouting distance. He could see Jessie's truck on the highway below. The area looked deserted. “Jess! ... Jessie! It's Conner,” he yelled. “Those guys that were shooting are done, Jess. We killed them... Jess?”

  Silence.

  “Goddammit, Jess. It's really me... Answer me... Someone!”

  Silence.

  He stood on his tiptoes. “You can see me, Jess... Those guys are dead... We killed them... I'm standing in plain view, Jess... For Christ’s sake don't shoot me... Come on, Jess. It's Conner!” His voice was hoarse already from shouting.

  Silence.... Then he saw her. A shock of black hair bobbing just above the truck's roof-line. She stepped around the truck and she was there, standing in full view on the apex of the hill.

  “Conner?” Her voice sounded small and far away. Her rifle was in her hands, ready to use. Another head bobbed, and another, and two men moved up behind her.

  “Jess, it's me. We're coming down, Jess,” he yelled.

  “Those bastards shot me, Conner,” she said in her far away voice. Then she collapsed.

  The Nation

  It was late, almost everyone had gone to bed. Amy and Katie had walked back down the valley to Katie's house. They sat quietly on the porch in the front porch swing.

  “I'm worried about them, Aim,” she said. “It's only been ten days, but I'm worried, Aim.” She started to cry.

  “Oh, Baby,” Amy said. She pulled Katie to her breast and stroked her hair. “It's the hormones, Kate. That's all... Got me all messed up too sometimes, Baby.”

  “It doesn't feel like hormones It feels real, Aim. Real,” Katie sobbed.

  Amy stroked her hair. “That's why it's so hard, Kate. It feels so real... But you'll make yourself sick if you start worrying now, Baby... It's a long way until they come back, unless everything goes easy,” she sighed. “It's going to take what it takes, that's all.” She stroked her hair and pulled her close.

  “Just hold me, Aim. I know I'm a big baby. Just hold me, Aim,” Katie sniffled. She was calming down. That was the thing with hormones, Amy thought. Rushes of emotion.

  “You got it, you,” Amy whispered. She smoothed Katie's hair and brushed the tears from her cheeks. She thought about Aaron, and she admitted to herself that she loved and needed him. There was more than a little guilt mixed in though. She hoped Katie was wrong. She hoped it was only Hormones, but she was more than a little uneasy herself.

  “I love you, Aim,” Katie said. “You're so good to me.” She was still sniffling, her voice thick with emotion.

  “I know, Kate... I love you too... It's gonna be alright, Baby.” She stroked her hair and wondered how true the words she had just spoken were.

  Conner

  On The Road

  Jessie Stone, Darren John, George Dell, Violet Hideki and Pam Glass were all that was left of the party that had left that morning. Peter and Melanie Kant and John Steele were dead, and they had seen first hand what had happened to Lisa.

  All five of them were scraped and cut. Violet and Pam had dozens of small razor thin cuts on their arms. They had shielded their eyes when the windows of the truck had blown in as the fight had begun. Their cheeks and foreheads were cut as well; wherever else unprotected skin had been.

  Darren John had a flesh wound to his shoulder. It had bled a great deal, it was still bleeding.

  George Dell had been cut by flying glass. One long, deep furrow that rose across his cheek towards his temple looked as though it could have been made by a bullet, but it could have just as easily been made by a flying piece of plastic from the truck's interior, Conner thought. It was impossible to tell for sure what it had been.

  Jess was the worst. The bullet had entered the fleshy part of the inside of one thigh. Her pants leg was soaked with blood; the leg swollen against the fabric.

  Conner had Chloe hold a cloth tightly to her thigh as he cut the pants away. The wound was clean. Through and through. It wasn't bleeding hard enough to have hit one of the big arteries, Conner thought, but it might have nicked one. Chloe continued to hold the cloth tightly, pulling it away momentarily as he looked the wound over.

  Conner picked up the radio by his side. He had deliberately turned it off. He had made up his mind and he did not want any emotion to get in the way of what he had decided to do. So he had shut it off and it had stayed off it. He turned it on now and punched in channel six.

  “Aaron... Aaron it's Conner. We've got problems here, Aaron.” The sun was sinking in the sky as he spoke. He was at least three hours away and he had no way to move everyone. Their trucks were all shot up and they had only four seats between them in the two trucks they had.

  “Jesus, Conner,” Aaron's voice came scratchy, but loudly from the radios tiny speaker. His voice was calmer when he spoke again. “What's up, Bro... Tell me,” Aaron said. Conner told him.

  A few minutes later he was talking to Steve Choi. Steve talked him through applying a bandage using cloth and a belt over the wound, and then using another belt as a tourniquet to slow the bleeding. Steve told him someone would have to loosen the tourniquet every few minutes to lessen the possibility of damage to the leg. And stop using it as soon as the leg stopped bleeding.

  He had him wrap her in a heavy blanket to keep her warm and help with shock from blood
loss. He got a few aspirins down her by tapping her face until she awoke enough to swallow.

  “Conner, you don't want to spend the night in the middle of the road,” Aaron said. “Put her in the back of one of the pickups... You have blankets? Quilts? Get them. They had to have had them. Get them and pad the hell out of one of those pickup beds. You can get everyone else in the bed of the other pickup. It may not be pretty, but it can work. Get them in there. Get someone with a flashlight to keep an eye on that tourniquet, and get back here,” Aaron told him.

  “Hang on,” Conner said. He turned to Violet and Pam. “Are there more of those blankets and quilts,” he asked.

  They both nodded, and he turned his attention back to the radio in his hand.

  “Okay,” he told Aaron. “We'll be coming at you. I think we got all of them, but I just don't know... So...” He didn't finish. He turned to violet and Pam. “Okay. Get me all the blankets, quilts and sleeping bags you can get... Shake them out just in case... Probably full of glass... We're going out. I guess you heard that. Let's get whatever personal stuff you have that will fit... We're gonna squeeze into those trucks... All of us... going in just a few minutes,” he finished quietly.

  They got Jess settled down into the bed of one of the pickups. Pam and Chloe climbed in to ride with her: They both knew what to do. Jess awoke for just a few seconds and whispered something in Conner's ear just before he climbed back down from the pickup bed.

  “What did she say,” Pam asked.

  “She asked where I was taking her,” Conner said. And on some other world, in some parallel universe, that could be true. The Jessie Stone in that other world might have said that. But the Jessie Stone here said 'I love you.' Conner turned and walked to the front of the truck.

  Janna Dove's Journal

  I am not as faithful as I once was about writing in this journal. It has been a few days.

  We are finding a rhythm to our work. Craig, Bonny and Roberta, our newest Members, have fit right in. Beth is healing nicely as well, and we just had a few more people come in tonight. For Craig, Bonny and Roberta, this is the life they wanted, so they are very happy. I am glad they found us. Sorry they lost so much on the way, but glad they are here. But that begs the question, will our travelers who are out there now bring others back with them? Jimmy believes they will. He believes the Nation will continue to grow. And it has been, so he is probably right. And that brings another question to my mind, how many are there here? Jimmy asked me tonight and I had no answer for him.