by Jeff Beeman
Lonely Girl
By
Beeman
Chapter One
Introduction to Now.
Apples and Oranges. That is what it is like to compare life after The Bad arrived to what life was before any one even knew it existed. It is silly. Just know that life was so much easier and fun before The Bad arrived. Life was full of good things to eat and shows to watch. Playing with your friends and sleep overs. Sure there was the boring stuff like home work and chores but still over all, life was fun. Also I really miss eating both apples and oranges. I need to find some other comparison that doesn’t make me so hungry. Maybe I should use rocks and sticks instead.
Then before things became the way it is now, I remember how Daddy and the other adults would talk about all the bad things happening in the west. At first it was just a things on the western side of the country, then it became the bad thing that started to spread from the west to all over the place. Momma was already sick before The Bad was even talked about with indoor voices and long before the adults began to talk in quiet whispers. I guess they did that so we children would not know how bad things were getting. Funny that adults think that keeps us from figuring that something is wrong. It never does but they did it anyway. Maybe it made them feel better.
Eventually the adults quit whispering and instead started doing weird things. The weird things started when my friends stopped coming to school or even out to play. The grocery stores that Daddy and I would go to started to not keep things like my favorite cereals on the shelves. Even Daddy began to act weird. When not visiting Momma or at work, he began spending more time on the computer talking to my Godfather who worked sort of like a policeman for the American government or he researched things and then began ordering all kind of things like thick books, camping stuff, various vitamins and even things like knives. It was during this time he quit taking me to the hospital to visit Momma. I didn’t like going to the hospital but would so I could see her. I missed her a lot. Daddy would just apologize and then tell me that it was not safe for me to go. Sometimes he was able to put Momma on for a video chat using his computer and the smart phones he bought her just so we could see each other. Though she looked sick, I loved talking to her. I never wanted those calls to end.
Then came the day Daddy came home and he was scared. That frightened me more than any book I had read. It was then that The Bad had found our town. From that moment Daddy no longer went to work and we no longer spoke to Momma. Soon we would leave our apartment, our cats, and my toys.
That was in the winter of last year. Since then The Bad has changed everything. There are no more television cartoon shows, lights, running water, or stuff like that. Daddy, like Momma and the cats, are together...that is all I will say about them. The only “people” since winter and the days when the air was so smoky it was hard to breath are un-people, like Jingles. Daddy said I should never name them or think they will want to be my friends but here at my new base, bases are not homes, there is a un-person on the first floor. He is dressed like a police person but I don’t think he was an actual officer. Jingles just stands in one spot, jingling his keys and watches the clock on the wall that doesn’t work.
My base is pretty cool. The first floor is like a bank only smaller. I have not really looked around down there except to find the front doors, two side doors, and one big metal door in the back. I also know where all three sets of stairs are. Daddy said it was always important to know the ins and outs of your building for good offense and defense plans. The next three floors are full of desks surrounded by little walls that don’t go up to the ceiling. There are a lot of computers but with no electricity or anyone to talk to, all that they are good for now is catching dust. The candy machines helped when I could not always collect enough food. I was never able to get into the soda machines but that is okay because I don’t like their taste anyway.
I live on the fifth floor. It is wide open because I don’t think they were done with it. There are only a few hanging wires that come out of where the ceiling is missing in places. I have access to the roof where I am able to collect rain water and make fires to heat up my rocks for cold nights. I have all my food and water containers on the fifth floor along with my book collection, my private business bucket, Tinkerbell sleeping bag, and bug-out bag in my Girl Scout backpack. To be honest, I have three. Daddy made sure I understood to always have extra bug-out bags at other places in case the base was lost to us. I also have my red wagon with cloth-covered wheels hidden on the first floor. Besides that, I have my Hello Kitty backpack, my utility belt, just like Batman but not for crime fighting, and some of Daddy’s stuff from one of his bug-out bags and what we collected when we were together.
Keeping up with my base chores keeps me really busy, especially with the days becoming cooler. Sometimes though I have some free time before the sun fully sets to read or just look out one of my big windows. On clear days, I can see a little into Arlington or at least I think I can. Other times I look down on the freeway and wonder what kind of person owned the deserted car I had chosen for the moment or what caused others to crash. It is these times that I get to feeling lonely but then I have Bouncy Bouncy to keep me company. He is my once-white stuffed bunny. Not being able to take baths has sort of done that to us. He has been with me since I was one. My fearless and true companion. The last of my family.
My base is in the “H” of HEBbie as my Daddy use to call our area. Others called it the mid-cities. Daddy showed me a map of our area on the computer once before the Bad times. It looked to me like Arlington, Dallas, and Fort Worth made the head of an arrow. HEBbie was the wood part. I guess that makes part of Grapevine the feather. The Base is in what was once called a commercial area. There are different places that served various foods, business, even a nearby hotel. There are also houses and apartments real close. I have been through them when I first arrived at the base to see what I could use.
Don’t think that we don’t have fun when we can. Today the sun is bright on a cool and cloudless day. I love bright days even when it was a hint of cold because the un-persons are either hiding from the light or will be too confused to be a threat to anyone other than themselves. With two large ice chests full of food and plenty of water, all I really have to worry about is finding wood for fire. Since it had been mostly dry for around a month, firewood shouldn’t be much of a problem once I can get to it.
The residential area near my base has what Daddy had called an established neighborhood. All I know is there are plenty of trees, thus plenty of firewood. I can hear little birds sing here and there, which is always a good sign. The neighborhood feels like what a nice place should feel like. Feeling free for the first time in a long while, I and Bouncy Bouncy decide to make a game out of picking up the sticks. For a real competition, we are introduced to the local competitors who are Mr. Nobody, a three-time winner of hide and go seek and unbeaten stare down master and to Mrs. Man-shaped Limb, member of the P.T.A (Pine Trees Association) and last year’s winner of Limb-bo.
The first round’s goal is to see who can hold the most limbs before having to tie the bundle together. Bouncy ended up winning because he use his famous hypno-stare, while Mrs. Man-shaped Limb was in last place since she took time to organize her relatives into a very proper British bundle. With the bundles tied together, the second round is to be a race to the wheel wagon. Bouncy and I lost this part of the competition because we get tripped up and could not stop laughing. Out of breath, I just lay there in the tall dead grass breathing in the cool air and feeling free of The Bad. I hadn’t laughed that much since after the Smokey air days but before...never mind that right now. T
he sky is so blue and close that I feel sure I can climb the tallest trees around and just touch it. This is like life before. I sit up to invite Mr. Nobody and Mrs. Man-shaped Limb back to our base when the hair on the back of my neck raises. I freeze in place and listen while only my eyes look around. No noise other than the occasional breeze. Finally I dare move by looking around but I don’t see anything. Yet I feel something is watching me. Also the little birds that had been singing have become silent. I stand up without brushing leaves and dead grass off of me, pick up two of the bundles, walk to the wheel wagon with its cloth-covered wheels, and began heading back to our base. I hold Bouncy Bouncy tightly to my chest as we travel down the no longer nice neighborhood street.
Never during the whole trip do I hear the sound of the hunting moaning or any other sounds of pursuit, still I feel I am being followed. Making back though the residential area to the more commercial zone where the base is, I enter so that anyone following will run into Jingles. Not that he will do anything but it might distract them. Moving into the shadowy first floor area, I move the damaged part of the hallway wall that allows me to enter the locked room. This is where I will be able hide the wheel wagon and firewood bundles. I move the wall section back into place and then go up the stairs I normally take after putting down a half a bag of marbles on the fourth and seventh step. If one of the un-people has followed me, they will have a fall thanks to them, which gives me chance to escape going one of the other ways.
My heart is pounding as I quickly run while remaining stealthy up the stairs and down the corridor until I can make it to one of my “perches”, which gives me a good view of the east area that faces where I had just travelled when coming from the neighborhood. Nothing out of the ordinary is in view. I learned a long time ago that waiting can mean life or death, so I wait. The sun moves from three hands from its high spot to where it will soon be touching the edge of the long-abandoned freeway, yet nothing has moved into view. It is going to be a cold night because I haven’t had time to heat rocks on the roof before night. Slowly moving away from the “perch”, I secure Bouncy Bouncy into his special spot on my utility belt, which I call his travelling chair. Going down to the first floor after collecting all of my marbles, I have memorized exactly how many I put on each step, and I then work my way to the bundled firewood, I have long ago lost the free feeling I briefly felt while gathering them.
The orange sun coolly gazes in when it is at equal level with the base’s window before I can will myself up for the morning. Try as I might, I have not been able to create a good enough nest to hold heat, so I could only sleep for a few exhausted hours, while shivering the remainder of the night away. Keeping the once-white bunny close to my chest, I move stiffly around to the food and water stores. Selecting an energy bar, I notice the water supply has developed a film of ice for the first time this fall. Dreading it but knowing it has to be done if I want water, I break the ice with my hand, then pull it back like it was on fire. Shivering even more as I put my cold, wet hand under my left armpit, while I kept Bouncy Bouncy next to my chest with my elbow, I chew on the energy bar, all the time shivering uncontrollably in my ill-fitting mismatched clothes. I begin to dance to the beat of the cold. If there had been anyone watching, they could have considered this an interesting performance art piece.
By the time the sun had moved to its highest peak, I had done the daily base upkeep chores, moved the bundled wood to its new dry covered spot on the roof, and stopped shivering all the time. Drowsily I try to think of something else to do so I can avoid napping. “Day time is our time and is more valuable than gold if one wants to survive because the night is theirs” Daddy had lectured. Sleeping during the day was to be avoided if at all possible. If I slept now, I might sleep into another heatless night. With nothing to do between now and when I would need to heat the rocks, I start to walk and think out loud.
“There was no moaning” I realize, which means there was no hunting pack. I had felt “it” follow me till I was close to the base, so it was not confused by the daylight. Since I didn’t run, I couldn’t use that as a factor about how fast it could move.
Like playing that old game, I kept looking at clues to match who it might have been. Since “it” moved well in daylight, it was not one of the un-people, and since it moved, it was even less a “statue” like Jingles. As my tired mind churned on the facts, I started to drift towards sleep, when suddenly a dreadful thought exploded on to me. “It was someone living!” my frightened mind realized. Cold terror gripped my mind and spirit after the epiphany. The living didn’t follow the rules. The living could come and go with ease in the daylight. They could take my supplies, my clothes, Bouncy Bouncy, even my life. Daddy had warned me that people pushed far enough could do terrible things and these were the worst of times, The Bad times. I had seen firsthand how bad the living could be. But I hadn’t seen any living since... Then. I felt very small, cold, and so terribly alone, I unconsciously make myself small and unnoticeable. As is his ability, Bouncy Bouncy comforts me with his gentle way and sagely eyes. As I look deeply in the bunny’s eyes, I remembered the before-times, heard Momma’s laugh, Daddy’s voice, the warmth of our cats rubbing against me. Maybe a couple hands have passed before I find what Daddy called my center. If there are living near the base, I will need to prepare. I am confident that I had been followed up to the street where the base was located, therefore I must prepare for the living.
With stealthy movement, I go about gathering what will be needed, all the while staying in the building and away from watching eyes. When the time has come to build the fires on the roof, so I can heat the rocks for the night, I feel I have gathered enough material to secure the base. Staying as best I can out of the little bit of smoke the fire generates, I giggle to myself as I go over my mental plans for preparedness using the various materials to make traps. Unlike the boy in that movie who had a lot of material to build with, I simply know my base and how light and shadow can be used to conceal trip wires, nails, and such. As rocks warm, I look into one of the books Daddy had gotten about such things, my mind freely roams from simple but logical traps to completely cartoon absurd complexity traps certain coyotes would marvel at. I started humming the old Gojira movie theme song like when I and Daddy would work on projects. Between rotating the rocks so all sides get heat, I am able to complete preparations to set up one trap.
Before moving the heated stones from the roof to their place in the base, making sure the fire is out, I have enough light to set up my first trap. It was a simple one, made with a couple of trip wires hidden in the darkness of the building. What takes the longest time is when I also place some broken mirrors pieces in places so that if anyone uses a light in the hallway, I will be alerted in time to hide.
With a sense of accomplishment and pride, I eat some of my supplies and drink some water before going off to a warm night’s sleep.
Chapter Two
Supply Run
Since the death of clocks, the only way to tell time is with the sun. Wonder how people did it before clocks were invented. Due to my working so much on the traps, I really didn’t notice how much time or even days had passed. I guess I could have determine how much had passed by how many traps I had set up. Sometimes good ideas come long after you need them. So I will guess a few days have passed but the more important this is that I have completed my task of putting into place more traps, until even I have to be careful when I try leave or enter this part of the base. Maybe this is another time I let boredom and imagination get the better of me.
Thanks to the weather, I had been able to keep my water supply up, even though the days are getting colder. On the other hand, the food supply is getting to the point I will have to make a “supply run” which in truth is another name we gave to the word scavenge. This means I will have to be out for a few days. I think this time I will head towards the north. Sighing out loud, I begin putting together my scavenging kit.
In a Hello Kitty backpack, I put my sli
ngshot (for defense only), emergency flashlight (need new batteries soon), four Bic lighters, one set of mismatched clothes (In case my daily attire gets wet), rain coat, two blankets (mostly in name only but still something is better than nothing), spare water container (filled), five meals of food (stomach is going to be growling at lot), paper (getting scarce), and pen (even more scarce) and finally Daddy's big book on edible plants. On my utility belt, I place Papa's big hunting knife (good for cutting), Girl Scout compass, and I make sure Bouncy Bouncy's travelling "chair" is secure. Finally I fill the large Army water canteen. What take the longest is finding my walking rod. It is useful for so many things that it could be about anywhere. Of course I find it up on the roof because I used it to hold up a part of the tarp I was using for sun shade. Oh well, don’t need it for that for a few days. With the traveling/scavenging preparations completed, I go back up to the roof and begin to heat rocks for what will be the last "comfortable" night for a while. Though my nest is warm, sleep comes slowly as it always seems to do when I have to leave the base for longer than an afternoon. There are so many things that I could not plan for, like what if the living are waiting on me to step out of my base to either steal things or capture me. My mind turns with different scenarios and how could I get around them. Once cartoon characters start helping out, I know I am getting sleepy. In the end, I remember what Daddy said, “The best plan one can hope for is a plan that will be good enough to change after you run into hidden problems”.
Luck is with me the next morning because it looks like it is going to be a sunny day with a few skinny clouds. Unfortunately, even though I try to stealthily leave the building, I am leaving a steam trail like a train from an old movie plus I feel sure my chattering teeth are sending out messages to everyone in the area saying, "Hello! I am out in the open, so come and get me!!"