The Collapse Trilogy (Book 3): Through the Ruins
Page 17
He tried to start the truck again and again but it had finally quit. This was it. Tanner looked over at Matos he was not going to leave him beside the road. He would find a good resting place for his old friend.
Painfully, he slid down from the truck and surveyed the area where he had stopped. It was a pretty spot with trees lining each side of the interstate. He limped over into the woods and found a little glade. It was a good place. Matos would like it here.
He went back to the truck, dug through the equipment box Peter had insisted every vehicle carry, and found the shovel. He slowly limped back to the little glade and began to dig. Sunlight was beginning to streak through the trees when Tanner finally finished burying his old friend. He stood over the fresh grave, not knowing what to say.
“I’m not very religious, so I don’t have the words. You know all the answers to all the great questions now, old friend. The answers everybody wonders about. But I know one thing: that you lived your life so in the next place we all go you’ll be welcomed and loved. I hope it is a more peaceful world than this one for you. You take care, old friend.”
Tanner made his way back to the truck and dragged himself into the cab. He was dripping sweat and thirsty as hell. He looked around on the floorboard, and there way in the back under the seats he found a full water bottle. He emptied it in one long gulp.
He slung Matos’s .308 across his back, grabbed his rifle, and began to walk in the direction of the mall. He had no idea how far it was, but he had to make it. It was his home now, because that was where the settlement was, and it was the only hope he had ever known.
The sun was blazing, and Tanner’s wounds had begun to bleed again. He fell, got up, and started walking. Then he fell again. Tanner rolled over onto his back. He wasn’t sure he could go on. Above him he saw a big green interstate sign that said Mason Mall – One Mile. It was the mall! He could make a mile. He rolled over onto his stomach and, using the last of his strength, stumbled to his feet. He limped, stumbled, and dragged himself to the exit and then down it toward ordinary streets, leaving a trail of blood behind him. He reached the bottom of the ramp and slowly sunk to his knees. This was it as far as he could go. He lay down. It felt so good not to be trying to move. He closed his eyes and thought. He hoped he’d get a chance to see the others when he got there. Idly, he wondered what it was like when you died. He was about to find out.
“Vin, Vin! Wake up, damn you!”
Someone was pouring water on his face. He opened his eyes and thought he saw Julia, but Julia wasn’t dead. She was with the others in the mall.
“What are you doing here?” Tanner mumbled. “You’re not…”
“Oh, baby. Quiet. We’re going to get you in the truck. This is going to hurt.”
Julia was right. When they picked him up, he screamed in pain.
“Danielle, can’t you do something?”
“Not until I get him back to the mall, Julia. We’re almost there.”
Tanner opened his eyes and saw Julia and Danielle. “I’m not dead, am I?”
“No, baby, you’re not dead.”
“That’s good,” Vin said, and then he passed out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Six Months Later
Vin’s leg still hurt, and he limped as he walked down the concourse. Danielle said he would probably always limp. There was just too much damage. As he walked down the mall, he was surrounded by the daily hustle and bustle of the settlement. The Mason Mall had turned out to be much larger than their old settlement’s mall, so they had been able to create spaces that they hadn’t had enough room for before.
There were two permanent classrooms for the children, divided up by grade level. Of course, school was done around their chores in the settlement—everyone worked, even the children. The various livestock hacks were up and producing their usual meat, rabbit and guinea pig. They were in the process of turning two empty buildings in the parking lot into livestock barns as well.
When they’d first arrived, they’d sent the gun trucks out for security checks of the surrounding area and spotted a few goats as well as a cow or two. So the plan was to capture them, bring them back, and begin to raise real livestock that could give them milk not just for drinking but for cheese to supplement their diet.
Security was much less of a concern here. The area was empty of any gangs or other threats. They knew of two other settlements nearby. Both had been small towns that had survived it all, using their own resources and trading with the farms around them. He and Dr. Rule had decided not to contact them for a while, to let them see that they were a peaceful settlement that posed no threats. The motorcycle gang had never followed them, and there were no others in the area. Tanner had organized security foot patrols and used the trucks as mobile patrols just to keep an eye on the area.
Everything was quiet, at least for now. Still, they had learned not to take their peace for granted, and they had decided as a group that every man and woman in the settlement would train as a fighter. Any teenager above the age of sixteen would go into training, and those under that age with the interest became runners. They were enjoying the peace but preparing for a more violent future; it was the only way to ensure their survival.
The cities had been emptying out as the pandemic continued to burn its way through their dense populations. For weeks after the settlers had first arrived, they had seen tilt-rotors on a regular basis, heading farther into the interior of the country. None had stopped or shown any interest in their little settlement, and the tilt-rotors had slowly disappeared. It had been weeks since they had seen one. There were no evacuees on foot this far away from the City. The decision to move had been the right one. Tanner was sure the old Mall was now occupied by refugees from the City.
With no tilt-rotors or refugees to be seen, they were safe. Tanner knew that meant all of those who could escape the cities had; he wondered what it must be like in those huge, empty towers of high tech with only the sick, dead, and dying left. Eachwould be a gruesome temple to the greed and avarice that had emptied the world of its valuable resources and led to this collapse.
Tanner walked to a door that led into the parking lot. A group of kids on recess were playing baseball in the lot. They had set up a field using whatever they could find as bases and were enjoying the outside. There were guards on four corners surrounding them, as well as lookouts on the roofs.
Cat and Blondie manned one of the guard posts. They were still a couple. Tanner was happy for both of them. You needed someone in this world. The children were the future, and were the most precious resource the settlement produced. Tanner, along with the other leaders, had made it a priority to train them for the future, but also to provide them with as much normality as they could. At times it was a difficult balance, but it was essential if they were going to produce adults who were more than just survivalists. It was the only way they could ensure that in generations to come the knowledge of what had happened and the consequences of that wasteful life were learned, or they would be repeated. Dr. Rule thought that Earth, without man consuming every available resource, would eventually settle into a new normal, close to the old normal but with unforeseen changes in the environment.
They had survived, but there had been a price in lives and in doing things they hadn’t wanted to. The sacrifices had been made to ensure that they would survive to live a life that respected the natural world and not one that would exploit it. Tanner was proud to have been a part of it, but he carried the weight of the decisions he’d made and the acts he had been forced to perform. He knew he had done the right thing in each incident, but it didn’t make living with them any easier.
One of his better decisions was out on the field. Chris the City girl was gone, and in her place was a decent young woman who was a great natural teacher and a hard worker in the kitchen. She was the umpire behind first base, calling balls and strikes. She taught the youngest children’s class and was a mentor to many teenage girls going through the tra
uma of their first loves. Tanner had thought she was one of his worst mistakes. He had been convinced that she would be a problem and end up on the side of the road as he had threatened. Instead, she was a contributing member of their tribe; it only showed that you never knew how decisions would turn out, and you had to make the best one you could when faced with each situation.
Someone had just hit a home run and was rounding third and heading to home when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned to see Julia.
“Who’s winning?” Julia said.
“Does it matter?”
“No, I don’t suppose it does.”
“Any news?”
Julia had been on shift in the command post, monitoring for any communications from the cities. It was the only way they could gather any intelligence on the outside world.
“No. there was nothing from the cities, only messages from a few other settlements. Brandon thinks that the second wave has finally led to a collapse in the cities and that we won’t hear any more from them.”
Tanner sighed. The human race had just been culled down to a few million people scattered in small settlements like this all over the world. They had just gone back thousands of years to the time of small tribes scratching out a living from the surrounding area. The human race was starting over again in the ruins of its mistakes and arrogance. It was a strange time to be alive.
Julia took his hand and placed it on her baby bump. “The doodlebug is starting to run laps,” she said with a laugh.
Tanner could feel his child move inside Julia. They had talked long and hard about bringing a child into this world, but she had convinced him, as women had convinced men for thousands of years, that it was the only way to ensure a future for them all.
Tanner put his arm around her and watched as one of the children hit a double. It wouldn’t be long before his son or daughter would be out there playing with them. Life goes on, no matter the challenges.
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Table of Contents
Through the Ruins
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE