It was sunny that day. A gorgeous summer day, really. The world would not weep for Rowdy’s death, or Meri’s. My morning was filled with grave digging. I dug a grave near Rowdy’s for Meri. I placed her in it gently, covered her with a sheet from the bed, and then filled it in. Each shovelful of earth that rained down on her made me sad. It gave me a sick feeling in my gut. Burying Rowdy had felt right, even if it was tragic. He’d deserved it. Meri, though, I barely knew. I felt like she should have had family there. I felt like it was almost sacrilegious for me to be the one to bury her. I put logs from the community room over her grave, piling them over the scar on the ground to discourage wild dogs from digging up her body. I wasn’t much for praying that morning, or even attempting to pray, but I hoped she was with her kids again. I hoped she was happy. She deserved it.
I dug a larger grave for Adam and the dogs he had killed the night before. Four dogs had been killed when he drove his truck over them. A fifth had died from a bullet wound. The rest of the pack was nowhere to be seen the next morning. Maybe the smell of their dead comrades scared them away. Maybe they found deer to chase. I would never know.
I put cordwood over that second grave, as well. I had plenty of it to spare and it only seemed right. I didn’t hate the man. I didn’t even dislike him, even though he’d tried to kill me after I’d been willing to let him go. I felt sorry for him, actually. I felt sorry for him, for Meri, and for me--and for this awful position we’d all been thrown into for seemingly no reason. Maybe for some, it helped him to call it an Act of God, but it just made me angry and sad. I was still searching for answers and coming up empty. Why did any of this have to happen?
I had an RV ready to travel filled with things for a woman and a dog to travel with me. These were things I no longer needed. I spent the early part of the afternoon cleaning out the things I wouldn’t need. I rearranged the Greyhawk to better work for one person. I stored a crap-ton of extra drinking water in the overhead bed compartment now that I’d be back in the queen bed in the rear.
As the late afternoon shadows stretched, I was ready to go. I took one last shower in my makeshift shower room, washing away blood and dirt, sand and sweat. I brushed my teeth and flossed. I dressed in clean clothes. I made one last trip through the library to make sure I wasn’t missing anything I would need. I lingered over the books. I laid in my bed one last time and looked at the ceiling above it. I made sure all the embers in the fire were out before I left.
Before I walked out of the annex for the last time, I took a thick black marker and wrote on the wall.
I lived here for the first year after the Flu. I went south because the winters are too cold. Find me in Madisonville, Louisiana.
--Twist
I had no idea if anyone would ever see that. I don’t even know why I did it, really. If someone did ever see it, maybe they’d be a nutjob like Adam and come down with guns blazing.
Or maybe they’d be someone with whom I could work toward a new future.
I couldn’t know.
I made sure the fire in the brazier was completely out. I trickled water from one of my water buckets over the ash until it was a soupy mess. I closed down the library as best I could. It had served me well.
The RV started up like it was supposed to, the big Triton engine purring under its hood. It was full of gas and supplies, ready to take me south. I nosed it toward Main Street and turned it onto Highway 151. In my rearview side mirrors, the later sun made the standing buildings of Sun Prairie glow orange. I felt a strange lump in my throat. My chest was heavy. I didn’t think I would cry, but I did. It was another loss in my life. I was leaving the world I had known, and I was plunging into the unknown. I was scared.
I’d been scared for most of the last year. Death had seemed so easy in the last year and a half; you’d think I’d be used to it. You’d think it would just stop bothering me.
You’d think.
I had to admit that death was still out there waiting for me. I was under no delusions that I might be immortal. I knew that eventually it would come. At that moment, I was just scared I might go alone. Adam didn’t die alone, even for all his horrific deeds, maybe dying alone would have been a fitting punishment. Meri died with me at her side. Granted, I was useless, but I was there, holding her hand when she went. Even Rowdy died with me, curled up on his bed with me standing nearby. Who was going to be there for me when it was my time?
I merged onto the Interstate, heading south. With no traffic and no cops to watch for, the miles passed quickly. The road was rougher than I remembered after a winter of frost heaves and contractions without constant traffic to counteract a lot of it. I still blew past Janesville and Beloit and crossed over the Illinois border. I drove through Rockford and Rochelle. Night fell as I hit LaSalle. I pulled over at the side of the highway to relieve myself. I breathed in the night air, still warm from the day. It smelled different than it did in Sun Prairie.
I checked the map as long as I was stopped. I was even with Chicago. Turning east would get me to the city in about an hour. I could go to the city and look for survivors one last time. Maybe even go to Gary, Indiana, then to Indianapolis before heading down to St. Louis.
I looked out at the swath of road that stretched before me, a massive slab of concrete and possibilities. I could go anywhere, really. I still had at least four months before real cold would hit the north. It was still the dead of summer. I could go east and drive through major cities looking for signs of life. I could see New York and Boston before heading south along the Atlantic Coast. I could detour through Georgia and Florida and pluck ripe fruit from the trees before backtracking through Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi on my way to Louisiana. I could even hit Texas and Oklahoma, if I tried.
I found Meri, and she found me. Adam found the both of us. There had to be more survivors out there. Maybe there was some kid barely getting by. Maybe it was a woman in a situation like Meri’s with some horrid man abusing her. Maybe there was a man scraping out an existence like I did, and we could do better to support each other. Who knew what lay out there before me?
I could go straight to Louisiana and set up house in Madisonville. It would be comfortable, sure, but it wouldn’t answer my questions. If there were other people out there, maybe they were looking for me like I was looking for them. Maybe they were putting notices in pharmacy and hardware store windows. Maybe they had written on the walls of places where they’d survived their first year after the Flu.
Maybe.
I couldn’t be sure until I got there myself.
I made the decision to go east. The second I told myself to do it in my mind, there was a swelling of joy in my chest. I was doing the right thing. I knew I was.
I gave a long, loud whoop. I was alive, and I was going to see the rest of the country, or at least the eastern half of it, before I settled myself in the south and started the world over. It was a good feeling. There would be a lot to see and do, and I couldn’t wait to get started.
I ate in the RV still sitting in the southbound lane on Interstate Highway 90. I cracked open a can of tuna and ate it with some crackers. I drank a twenty-ounce bottle of Coke. It was a night for celebrating, after all. Then, I stepped out of the RV to brush and floss before heading back to Chicago.
I stood on the side of the road brushing my teeth, swigging from a water bottle when I was done to rinse, and I spat into the long grass on the side of the road. I was about to head back into the RV when I heard a small, peaked “mew.”
A handsome black-and-white cat slithered out of the grass and walked over to me, rubbing its head on my shin. It purred loudly. It had apparently not forgotten what humans were, and what they meant. Its fur was a little dirty from a year of living outdoors, but it was healthy enough. Trust cats to not be fazed by a lack of humanity.
I knelt and scratched the cat’s head and ran my fingers down its body. It had collected a few ticks. I plucked them out and tossed them into the grass. The cat rubbed its head
against my shin gratefully and twirled a figure eight around my ankles. “Who are you, buddy?” I asked. The cat purred loudly, a deep, throaty rumble. It was a male, and he had been neutered before the Flu. The cat had to be at least two years old, maybe older. He looked fully-grown with a big head and thick body. He had been eating fairly well over the past year.
I gave the cat a last scratching down its body and stood again. “Maybe I’ve got something for you.” I went back into the RV to get the can of tuna. There was still some scrapings in the can that the cat might enjoy. When I turned around, the cat was in the RV, perched upon the little table next to my typewriter, looking up at me expectantly.
“Are you coming with?” I asked. The cat meowed and batted at me with its paw, clearly begging for attention or the tuna can, or both. I set the can down and the cat went to work digging out the scraps with its tongue. I kept petting him as he did. When he finished, he licked his chops and jumped off the table. He walked to the front of the RV and climbed up in the window, laying down on the expansive, still-warm dashboard, wedging himself in the space where the windshield came down to the console.
“I guess you are coming with me,” I said. “Welcome aboard. To be frank, I could use the company.” I shut and latched the side door of the RV. I stepped over the center console into the driver’s seat and started the RV. The cat didn’t seem fazed in the least. I shifted to Drive and started motoring down the highway, taking the turn east back to Chicago.
“You’ll need a name,” I said. “I’m not going to call you ‘Cat’ for the rest of your life.”
The cat narrowed his eyes at me, squeezing them to sleepy slits.
“How about Rowdy?”
The cat gave no reaction. It had been worth a shot.
“Fuzzball? George? Miss Prettypaws?”
The cat opened his eyes and gave a bored lash of his tail. There was something about his bearing and manner, combined with the fact that he was almost entirely black save for his white tummy and paws, that made me think of Morticia Addams for some reason. Given his gender, I didn’t think calling him Morticia would fit, so I tried the other names. “Gomez?”
Silence.
“Fester?”
The cat mewed slightly, a high-pitched half-mew that a kitten might make. I reminded me of Uncle Fester’s high, squeaky voice. I took that as a yes.
“Fester it is, then.”
The sky to the east was a deep, steel gray. Night was coming fast. “I’m going to need a litter box for you, Fester. And maybe some dry food, if I can find it. I will stop at the first pet store I see.”
A small mew in response.
“You and me, Fester--we’re going to have ourselves a time, you know?”
Another mew.
“I’ve never had a cat before, you know? I’ve always liked cats, though.”
Mew.
“Well, if you’re going to be my new best friend, I’m going to need to tell you a story about a dopey Labrador Retriever named Rowdy who was simultaneously the bravest and the dumbest dog I’ve ever known. You don’t fart much, do you?”
Fester narrowed his eyes again. His tail twitched lazily.
The road was empty before me, my headlights playing over the concrete in the growing dusk. I felt better at that moment. Lighter. I felt like this was the way things should be. I was adjusting to the new sense of normal. I was alone, but Meri had given me hope that other people might be out there. I would find them. I had lost the best friend I’d ever had, but I had a new friend, at least for a while. I had purpose.
And I was alive. Regardless of anything else, I was still alive.
And that was enough, for now.
Long Empty Roads
The Survivor Journals, Book 2
For anyone who understands loneliness,
And anyone who has cured someone of it.
.
It’s Thursday, I think. I’m not sure.
Honestly, it doesn’t even matter. The apocalypse wasn’t a cruel dream. The Flu was real. Everyone I have ever known is still dead.
The world is still a vacant and barren place. I am still alone, heading south-by-way-of-the-East-Coast looking for any possible survivors of a catastrophic viral apocalypse who might want to help me rebuild civilization.
This is the continued journal of my daily life.
My name is Twist (it’s a nickname, actually). I’m eighteen. I miss Big Macs, television, human contact, and going to the movies.
And I am still alive.
CHAPTER ONE
Still Alive
I dreamed last night. I don’t often remember my dreams, but this particular dream I did. In the dream, I was surrounded by friends. Not particular friends, mind you, just faceless, voiceless shapes that my subconscious brain recognized as friends. That was something that I haven’t known in over a year. All my friends are dead.
In the dream, my friends and I were bowling. What bowling has to do with anything, I’m not sure. I was never into bowling when everyone was still alive. I have no desire to go bowling now. Bowling was something Wisconsin kids did on Friday or Saturday nights when there wasn’t anything better to do. A small group of us would go get some cheese curds, a few Mountain Dews, and roll balls at the Prairie Lanes until midnight. It wasn’t exciting. It wasn’t even fun, really. It was just something to do while we hung out, something to break the monotony of sitting around and talking. It was easier to talk to girls if every so often you had someone to laugh at or some silly new way to roll the ball.
Anyhow, I dreamed I was doing well. This is highly unusual. I’m lucky if I break a hundred. I’m a lousy bowler; it’s just not something I was raised to do. In Wisco, there are families who take bowling very seriously. Their kids start in leagues when they’re four or five. The parents bowl every weekend. My parents were from outside the Bowling Belt, originally. My dad was not into playing sports in the least; he was an occasional hack golfer, but that was it. My mom would never have worn shoes that other people also wore, so we never went.
In the dream, I’m a strike king. The ball is hooking like I’m some PBA tour pro. The pins are scattering like playing card houses in a tornado before the might of my throws. All the girls in those faceless, voiceless shapes are watching me in awe. I have no idea how I knew they were in awe—my brain was taking great liberties. Anyhow, after I throw my final ball and seal the 300 game, one of the girls approaches me. There’s sexual tension between us. She moves in to kiss me. I can feel her form, the softness of her curves. I don’t know what kind of girl gets turned on by someone who is really good at bowling, but it’s a dream so I roll with it. She parts her mouth slightly, and I lean in. We’re almost touching. I feel electric. My lips almost touch hers, and I catch a whiff of her breath. It is foul, like tuna and old socks. I start to gag.
And like that, I’m awake. The dream world dissipates in an instant. I’m in bed, curled into a near-fetal position. There is a large black-and-white cat an inch from my nose. He is curled up like a furry burrito with his feet tucked under him, and his rank stank-breff is assaulting my nasal passages.
“Seven hells, Fester.” I rolled away from him. “I’m brushing your teeth as soon as it’s morning.” I tried to bury my head under my pillow and return to sleep, but it was too late. I was awake. Outside the thin plastic windows in the back of my trusty Jayco Greyhawk RV, I saw the pale pink sky of the morning sunrise. Somewhere, birds were beginning to stir. I could hear their first tentative chirps. It was morning.
I lay in bed a moment longer, staring at the white plastic on the ceiling of the RV. It was bumpy, like the surface of an orange. It reminded me that I hadn’t had an orange in well over a year. I wondered if I’d find orange trees in Louisiana. I thought about making a detour to Florida, first. If I harvested some oranges, maybe I could plant some orange trees in Louisiana if I didn’t find any. I shook off the covers and sat up. It was the middle of summer. Already the air was thick with humidity, and I could tell that it was goi
ng to be an aggressively hot day.
I was parked on the desolate Interstate Highway 90 just outside of South Bend, Indiana. When I’d stopped for the night, I’d just thrown the RV in park in the middle of the eastbound lanes. It wasn’t like I was going to cause an accident or any delays. That’s one of the few bright spots of the apocalypse: No more traffic jams. I could also say that it was nice that no police officer was going to roll up on me and write me a ticket, but after a year with barely any human contact, I would have welcomed any amount of ticket-writing or general questioning from someone in a blue uniform.
I threw open the RV door and stepped into the thigh-high weeds along the side of the road to relieve myself. Fester watched from the doorway. When I finished, he meowed impatiently, one of those long, drawn out whiny meows. I don’t speak Cat, but I’m certain it translated to something like, Feed me, stupid human.
Fester has only been with me two days. He climbed into my RV while I was parked on the highway outside of Rockford, Illinois, and has been largely disinclined to leave it. He’s an adult shorthair, as far as I can tell, one of those common, everyday types of furballs that tended to populate animal shelters and Facebook photos. He was super friendly, and he was fixed at some point in his life, so I assume he was owned and loved by someone before the Flu. He claimed the shotgun spot in the RV as his own. As far as travel companions go, I could have done worse.
I left the door of the RV open while we ate. The morning air was thick and humid, perfumed heavily with wildflowers along the side of the road. I drank in deep breaths of it even though I knew it would probably set off my allergies. It was moments like that: me sitting at the table and having a bowl of instant oatmeal, Fester chowing down on some canned cat food, with the birdsong and summer air almost overwhelming me that I felt normal, like this was what life was meant to be, that I might actually enjoy being in this new world.
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