THE LAST OF the bacon, eggs, cheese, and milk were consumed at breakfast the next morning. Sunlight, still reddish and low, angled through the kitchen window, and outside in a tall sycamore tree were the low, mournful notes of a dove. Everyone was up shortly after dawn. Without electricity, they were already adjusting to the dawn-to-dusk schedule that humanity had for millennia.
Breakfast was prepared in silence. Gary said, “No change,” as he came in, sleepy-eyed and yawning, from his turn at Margo’s bedside, and that was all any of them needed to know. They emptied as much of the food as they could reasonably use from the fridge, and had a lavish meal with the rest of the perishables. They’d stowed the milk carton in the rapidly-warming freezer, and Ben poured the remaining cupful over a bowl of frosted flakes.
“I know the milk in grocery stores is probably already bad.” Zolzaya scratched her chin. “But what about eggs and bacon? How long do those last unrefrigerated?”
“Eggs can last weeks,” Lissa said. “Bacon and other cured and salted meat maybe a month or so if it’s sealed. That’s how they handled meat on board ships back in the day. But I think we should be careful, and err on the side of safety. You don’t realize how important medical care is until you need it and can’t get it. Trifling with something like food poisoning would be unwise.”
“What if one of us does get really sick?” Gary asked around a mouthful of the bacon-and-cheese omelet he’d helped prepare over the camp stove. “There are drugs available. No one’s guarding the pharmacy, you know?”
“Yes, but does anyone here have the expertise to diagnose, much less prescribe treatment? Suppose you did get sick. How would we know what drug to use, and in what dosage, even assuming we could find it in a pharmacy? Margo’s the only one who has any medical background, and until she wakes up, she can’t help us.”
“Better to try.” He wiped his lips. “What did they do a long time ago, before they had all of these antibiotics and vaccines and shit?”
“Mostly, they died.” Lissa shrugged. “I forget who said it, but there’s a line about life back then being ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.’”
“Jesus.” Gary cast his eyes skyward. “You’re a real fucking ray of sunshine, Lissa.”
She smiled not-so-sweetly. “Nope. Just a realist.”
“We could find the library, and see if there’s a book on pharmaceuticals,” Zolzaya said. “Or failing that, a book on natural medicines.”
Lissa considered this. “It’ll be a steep learning curve. But it’s a good idea.”
“We’re smart enough to handle what gets thrown at us, I think,” Zolzaya said. “But you’re right, we need to be careful. Way more careful than we have been. I think I’d avoid the motorcycle, Gary.”
To her surprise, he didn’t argue. “Buddy of mine almost got turned into road pizza on a ’cycle, three years ago. He was out riding at night, drunk, and that didn’t help. He was in the hospital for five days. Doctor said he took more skin off than he thought a human body had.”
“An injury of that sort would almost certainly be fatal under our circumstances,” Lissa said. “Let’s think before we act. And pay attention to hygiene. We don’t have doctors to run to anymore.”
Ben looked over at Z. “What are we going to do today?”
So Ben thought she was in charge, too. How did that happen? Humans are strange animals, always looking for the pack leader.
“We need to get batteries for the lantern. Maybe see if we can find another lantern or two. More food scavenging. Once the grocery store runs low, we can go from house to house and pick up non-perishables.”
“So all we do all day is look for food?” Gary asked.
“Welcome to life as a hunter-gatherer,” Lissa said. “It always made me laugh when I’d hear my coworkers say they were overworked. Modern humans have more leisure time than any other society in the history of the Earth.”
“Had,” Jeff said in a sepulchral voice. It was the first word he’d spoken all morning.
“Had,” Lissa corrected herself. “And we better start our day of hunting and gathering. But someone needs to stay with Margo.”
“I’ll stay,” Jeff said. “I’ll pray for a sign that will tell us how to free her from the demon.”
“You do that, dude,” Gary said, rolling his eyes.
—
A HALF-HOUR LATER, Zolzaya, Ben, Lissa, and Gary went out of the front door and down the steps to the sidewalk. The morning was cool, the air carrying the ever-present salt smell of the sea, but the skies were clear and presaged a warm afternoon. They set off the opposite way from the previous day’s walk. Lissa asked Ben where the library was, with the intent of taking Zolzaya’s suggestion of finding books on local edible and medicinal plants and then circling back to First Street for groceries and other supplies afterwards.
“No time like the present,” she said.
Fourth Street, where Ben’s house stood, sloped gently downward, then curved left toward a bridge shaded by huge cottonwood trees. A little creek gurgled in a rocky bed edged with long tufts of grass, flowing down toward the sea a quarter-mile away. Ben stopped in the middle of the bridge, leaned on the rail, and looked down. The dappled sunlight flickered over them, moving as the breeze from the ocean made the cottonwood leaves flutter.
“Hey, Z?” His voice sounded small and unsure. “Do you think this is clean enough to drink?”
“If we boil it, it’ll be fine.”
Lissa came up and put one long hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Our ancestors, not long ago, lived their lives drinking water from creeks and rivers. They learned things like, ‘Always drink water upstream of where you live.’ We have to emulate what they did.”
He gave her a doubtful smile. “What about what you said at breakfast, that life was nasty and short and all, back then?”
“We’re smarter than they were. We’ll survive.”
The boy seemed satisfied for the time being, and after a moment, Gary and Zolzaya walked across the bridge with Ben trailing along in their wake. Lissa stayed behind for a moment, staring down into the water.
Z reached the end of the bridge, and looked back. Lissa was leaning over the bridge railing, an intent frown on her face. She was about to call out to her when Lissa turned away and came after them, her long legs moving in a quick and determined stride.
“What’s the matter, Lissa?” she asked, as the other woman caught up to the rest of the group. “What were you looking at?”
“Nothing.”
—
THEY LEFT THE Furness Public Library a half-hour later, leaving it with a front window edged by jagged teeth of glass shards and over a dozen fewer books. Lissa had Edible Plants of Coastal California and Healing Yourself The Natural Way. Ben had a pile of books on astronomy, astrophysics, and a huge tome called The Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Folklore. Zolzaya had two books on organic gardening, a book on preserving food, and a pair of novels by Haruki Murakami, an author her sister had recommended to her but whom she had never gotten around to reading. Gary shrugged his shoulders at reading material, and sat on the curb in the sunshine while the others wandered around the shadowy interior of the library. Even though it had only been a few days, it already had a vague air of desolation. They walked past wheeled carts of books that now would never be reshelved, the empty circulation desk, a children’s reading room with brightly-colored posters of Where the Wild Things Are and Green Eggs and Ham and a little farther on, in the Young Adult Section, The Golden Compass, The Lord of the Rings, and Twilight. The Cat in the Hat and Clifford the Big Red Dog and Prince Caspian and Legolas Greenleaf watched them from the shadows with unblinking eyes as they pulled books from shelves, still feeling like thieves.
When they opened the door with their acquisitions, they found Gary standing up, facing downtown, an intent look on his face.“I hear a car.”
Indeed, almost inaudible against the background noise of the wind in the trees and the distant roar of
the surf, was a familiar sound—an automobile engine, its growl becoming steadily louder as it approached from the south. For a moment, they all stood still, as if unable to comprehend a noise that only last week had been so commonplace that it wouldn’t have been noticed.
“C’mon!” Ben took off downhill at a jog toward First Street, struggling to hold onto his pile of books as he ran.
So Jeff’s communiqué from God had been right. As Z followed Ben, she had a brief thought that, if there were three people in the car, she might have to reconsider her disbelief that his connection to God existed.
They arrived at the street corner as a jacked-up pickup truck came into view. As they watched, it veered around a cluster of cars blocking the road, barely slowing as two of the wheels bounced up onto the sidewalk.
Ben set his books down in the grass, and jumped up and down, waving his arms over his head and yelling, “Here! We’re over here!”
The driver of the truck slowed, blew his horn three times, and pulled to a stop. A dark-haired woman in the passenger seat gave an enthusiastic wave, and two doors opened simultaneously.
The man behind the wheel was handsome and well-built, with a stern expression and brown hair in a near crew-cut. The first thing Zolzaya noticed was that he was armed—in a holster at his side was a deadly-looking handgun. The woman, on the other hand, kept looking from one face to the next, as if she wasn’t sure that what she was seeing was real.
“Oh my god, you have no idea how glad we are to see you.” Her voice trembled as tears ran down her dirty face. “You’re the first ones we’ve seen since we set out. I’m Olivia Carr.”
The man was far less effusive. He simply nodded. “Jackson Royce.”
Hands were shaken and introductions made. Everyone was eager to hear everyone else’s story, and the next few minutes were filled with tales that were all the same except in the details. Each of them had awakened three mornings ago to find that nearly everyone around them had vanished.
“I knew something was wrong as soon as I woke up.” Jackson leaned back against the grille of the truck. “The sounds were wrong.”
Z nodded. “That was what I noticed first, too.”
“Jackson came by in his truck, looking for people,” Olivia said. “The first day, I was shell-shocked. I stumbled around in a daze, like I was in a nightmare. Then the second day, I woke up, and thought, ‘Hey, maybe it all was a dream.’ So I got ready for work, you know? I’m a baker, and I went in to the bakery as usual. I knew by that time that no one would be there, but you do things because you’ve always done them, you know? Like, auto-pilot. But I got there, and the whole village was still empty, like the day before. I sat down on the sidewalk and started bawling. I was still crying when Jackson found me.”
Gary nodded at Jackson. “So what about you? What’s your story?”
The newcomer gave Gary a quick frown, but his expression returned to its previous impassivity almost immediately. “I worked for a hardware store, and before that, I was a sergeant in the Army. After the Event, I thought it was important to see if there were any other survivors. So I went up and down the streets in Santa Isobel in a systematic way, blowing the horn and seeing if anyone responded. Same in each town I passed through, until Adelaide Bay. Olivia was the only one there, so she came along. We’ve been working our way north ever since.”
“Why north? More people likely in L.A.”
Jackson looked at him narrowly, for a little longer this time. “L.A. is probably a disaster area.”
Zolzaya looked closely at the man. Here was someone who didn’t like having his choices questioned. How likely was it that they’d end up with a pissing match between Gary and Jackson? That could get ugly fast.
But Gary said, “Makes sense,” and Jackson seemed to relax some.
“Think about what the roads must be like. It was bad enough on Highway One. Also, can you imagine how many jet crashes there were near LAX that morning? Hundreds of planes coming in to land or taking off, and suddenly no pilots or passengers?”
“Holy Mother of God,” Lissa said quietly. “I never even considered that.”
Jackson gave her a grim nod. “So I decided to head north. We zigzagged our way up the coast. We considered working our way inland and getting onto 101, but it was more important to find survivors than to cover miles, so we stuck to the villages, searching each one as carefully as we could. Either there weren’t any other survivors, or they hid when they heard us coming.”
“That’s possible.” Zolzaya nodded. “There’s no guarantee that anyone we run into will be friendly. I had a brief moment when Ben ran toward you when I thought of yelling for to him to stop until we got a look at you.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Jackson said. “It’s smart. We have to be careful. I’ve got my Glock, just in case. Are any of you armed?”
Zolzaya shook her head.
“At least a couple of you should consider it. Do any of you have experience with firearms?”
Lissa said, “I’ve taken a handgun safety course. Living in Berkeley, it was prudent.”
Zolzaya nodded. “I did the same thing six years ago. My dad insisted. I still don’t like guns, though.”
“Don’t own one, then?” He sounded as if he already knew what the answer was, and already disapproved.
“No.”
“Lissa?”
“I have a gun in my apartment, but that’s eighty miles away. I have nothing with me now.”
“You should rectify that.” He looked around at them. “Are the four of you it? Haven’t found any other survivors?”
“There are two others,” Zolzaya said “We left them back at the house we’re staying in. One of them is… sick.”
“It’d be better not to split up. Leaving one person alone with someone who’s ill. Not a good idea.”
“Why?” Gary asked. “Thought you said we’re the first people you’ve seen?”
“It’s not people.” Olivia stopped, frowning and biting her lip.
They all looked at the new arrivals expectantly.
Jackson cleared his throat. “I don’t want to spook you. Especially with….” He glanced at Ben, who drew himself up.
“I’m not afraid.”
“You should be, son. Sometimes there are solid reasons to be afraid.”
Olivia glanced over her shoulder. “Something’s following us.”
Z regarded her with a raised eyebrow. “Something?”
“We’re being stalked,” Jackson said. “I’m not sure what it is. But it’s definitely not human.”
Gary blanched. “What did it look like?”
Olivia sensed what Gary’s tone must mean. “You’ve seen it?”
“Well, we saw something,” Z said. “A couple of somethings, actually.”
“We’ve seen it three times,” Jackson said. “Always in dim light or conditions that were poor. I got close to it once, but didn’t shoot fast enough. It walks on two legs. Maybe six feet tall, certainly not much more. Its skin has some kind of a shaggy pelt.”
“What was its face like?” Gary said.
“Not sure. It’s never gotten close enough to see well. But it’s completely covered by hair. I think I saw what looks like a snout. A muzzle. More like an animal than a human. But I wouldn’t put a lot of confidence in my memory of it. I’ve had momentary glances, no more. It moves quick.”
“How do you know it’s dangerous?” Ben asked.
“We’re operating under the assumption that it is. Better to make a mistake that way than the other. And its actions have been menacing. I wasn’t going to take any chances. Each time I’ve seen it, it’s been wary, and ducked away behind a building before I could get off a clear shot.”
“We were staying the night in a motel in Geary. It scratched the door during the middle of the night.” Olivia shuddered. “Like it was marking us for slaughter.”
Jackson nodded. “Other than that, I’ve only seen one other trace it’s left. A footprint outsi
de the door of the room I was staying in, the first night after the Event.”
“What did the footprints look like?” Ben asked.
“The overall shape was kind of like a human’s. But flat-footed. And only four toes, and it had claws.” He turned toward Zolzaya. “What have you seen? You said you’d had some run-ins yourself.”
Zolzaya gave him a brief account of their encounters with the Tree Creature, her glimpse of the old hag on the street corner, and the glowing thing that had attacked Margo. “Do you think what you saw is the thing that grabbed Gary’s arm?”
Jackson frowned and didn’t answer for a moment. “Doesn’t sound the same to me. Wish I’d gotten a better look. But you saw the thing’s face, right?”
“That’s what we remember.” Lissa said, putting extra emphasis on the word remember.
“You don’t sound convinced.”
She raised her hands, palms upward, and gave him a wry smile. “I’m not saying anyone here is remembering wrong, mind you. It’s more that I’m well aware of how elastic human memory is. Shadows and fear and past associations play tricks on your mind. I remember a couple of years ago, one of my colleagues told me about a woman he knew who had had laser surgery to correct severe nearsightedness. She’d never had much in the way of peripheral vision before, and as soon as she recovered from the surgery, she started seeing things.”
“Things?” Ben said. “What kind of things?”
“Out of the corner of her eyes, you know. She saw a little monster with sharp teeth and brown scales, coming toward her with its fangs bared.”
“What was it?” Ben’s eyes were wide, fixed on Lissa’s calm face.
She smiled again, broader this time. “It was a fallen tree branch. The scales were dead leaves.” She turned back to Jackson. “So I’m not doubting you, you see. It’s more that I have a poor opinion of the human perceptual system.”
Jackson’s forehead creased with a frown, and he regarded Lissa through narrowed eyes. “I know what I saw.”
The Fifth Day Page 17