The Oasis

by Janette Osemwota

  Jasper smiled at her. “Me too,” he whispered.

  She laughed, brushing the hair out of her face, and looked at him through her long lashes. It melted her heart a little to know that he wasn’t without compassion. “So, what about you?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, steering the car around more obstacles. They passed under an interstate sign, and Jasper cringed slightly.

  “Well, first, tell me what’s in Coronado?”

  He knew she was going to ask eventually. “I’ve got a place out there.” He didn’t look like he was going to add any more information.

  Lena sat looking at him. “Okay,” she said slowly, hoping he would get the drift and add more information. When he didn’t, she pressed her luck. “Is that where you’re from?”

  His silence remained, but he nodded.

  She gave up on getting him to talk more, at least for now. Where else did she have to go? Her farm was now far too dangerous. She had to make a choice. She could stay with Jasper and hope that Coronado would be safe, or leave him and be alone once again. Looking over at Jasper, she knew she didn’t want to leave him. He would open up to her eventually. His past was probably something she didn’t need to be dragging up. Just because she had accepted what had happened didn’t mean he did. Maybe he blamed himself in some way. “You know, it wasn’t your fault.”

  Jasper laughed silently. If she needed to feel like he blamed himself, perhaps it was the best. The truth was far from that. Although he knew more about the end than she did, and it was true that inside he felt some responsibility for that end, it wasn’t the kind of guilt she was thinking.

  “Somewhere, probably really far from here, there is a person who knew this was going to happen.” Lena said. She might not be a scientist but it seemed pretty obvious a virus like this had to have been engineered. “You couldn’t have changed what happened.”

  He didn’t say anything. Even if he ever told her his role in the distribution of the virus, he certainly couldn’t tell her everything he wanted to. If she knew the truth, then their relationship would most likely never continue. That he knew for sure. He kept trying to tell himself that the best thing for both of them would be to take her somewhere safe and leave her. There was no reason for her to get involved in what he had to do, or even to let her know about the O.A.S.I.S.

  Lena looked over at him, waiting for him to say something.

  Remaining silent, he turned up the music in the car and they drove on.

  Chapter Five

  Bodies lay dead on the side of the road in different stages of decay. At first it had bothered Lena to see them. God only knew how and when they had gotten on the side of the road, out of their cars. Because the change had come so quickly for most, bodies usually lay randomly around. The highway was full of cars. Lena suspected that most people had died at night, because most of the others were most active then. Sometimes she tried to speculate on how they had died. Had it been painful? The morning it had reached her seemed like every other morning.

  Now, however, she was grateful for the roads being as clear of bodies as they were. Jasper had remained quiet throughout their journey. Lena had periodically asked to stop for bathroom breaks or for snack breaks, and Jasper had obliged, but otherwise remained quiet.

  Although Lena had packed and was reading one of her favorite books, she was able to examine him over the edges of her book. His arms were muscular and he wore his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. She blushed when she realized that her eyes had been drawn to his ring finger. There wasn’t a ring or a mark indicating there had once been one.

  “What?” he asked, startling her because it was the first thing he had said in over an hour.

  “Hmm?” She cleared her throat, nervous from being caught staring.

  “You’re looking at me like I’m some science experiment.”

  Not realizing she was being watched as well, she shuffled her book onto her lap. “Oh, um,” she said. “I’m just reading my book.”

  Jasper scoffed but didn’t push her further. He knew she was watching him over her book and with the way the edges were worn he had a hard time imagining that she hadn’t read that book a dozen or more times.

  Lena forced her eyes back to the pages in front of her. Although she had read The Last Man on Earth time and time again, she tried to focus on each word.

  “Do you think you’ll learn something from that book?” Jasper asked.

  Laughing, Lena put the book away. “Have you read it?”

  He nodded. “When things first went down I found it and read it.” He laughed before he continued. “You know, it’s kinda ironic that I read that book after things went to hell.”

  She smiled a little. He smiled back. But the expression barely reached his eyes and she could tell he wasn’t the kind of man who wasted smiles on just anyone. Suddenly he reached over and put a large palm on her leg. “You know, Lena…” he said.

  Her blue eyes sparkled and he wondered what the hell he was doing. Before he could finish telling her that he wasn’t being completely honest, something ran in front of the car. Jasper withdrew his hand from her lap and grabbed the steering wheel, weaving the truck out of the way. They swerved dangerously as Jasper struggled to set the car right.

  “What the hell was that?” he asked, looking in the rearview mirror to try to catch a glimpse of whatever it was. He didn’t slow the car down. When he looked over at Lena she had her hand on her pistol. They hadn’t seen anyone in such a long time that for a moment they had both forgotten the danger. It was so easy to imagine that they were simply a couple on an afternoon drive.

  Lena broke their eye contact and looked behind them. Her eyes scanned the horizon and she unconsciously noted that the sun was starting to set and Jasper hadn’t mentioned anything about stopping for the night. “I don’t see anything,” she whispered. Looking back at Jasper, she saw that his mood had suddenly changed. “I don’t think you hit anyone, Jasper,” Lena whispered.

  He scoffed quietly and Lena could see his hand tightening on the steering wheel. “You think that…” he started before trailing off.

  “What?” she whispered, not knowing why his mood had darkened. He pointed silently to a sign on the side of the road. Lena didn’t understand.

  Down a ways, almost out of view, was an old highway sign. They were entering Los Angeles and Lena swallowed involuntarily. The sign had markings on it; there was blood dripping from the sign.

  “Oh. My. God.” Lena gasped. “Can we turn around?” At the bottom of the sign a dead man was sitting. Someone had positioned the body so that the man was holding his own severed head. It was unlike anything Lena had ever seen before.

  Jasper shook his head and continued driving past the body. Lena began to wonder just where exactly they were going that seemed so important to him. The whole time she’d lived alone she had never seen the others kill each other. Of course, until she had met Jasper, she’d spent her time avoiding the others, so perhaps she simply hadn’t seen what they were capable of. Nor did she want to. Now all of a sudden she was being driven into a city that clearly contained people who had no problem decapitating each other. This was not what she wanted at all.

  “Pull over,” Lena gasped, feeling suddenly sick.

  “What?” Jasper looked over at her.

  “Pull over.” Lena threw her hand over her mouth. “Pull over now!” she shouted.

  Jasper quickly pulled to the side of the road and she jumped out of the car. She barely made it to the bushes before her lunch came up. Jasper also got out of the car, and held his rifle up. He kept one eye on Lena as he surveyed the area quietly. After a few minutes, Lena sat on the ground, her face in her hands as she started crying.

  “You okay?” Jasper stood over her and handed her a small pack of baby wipes and a small bottle of water.

  “Yeah,” she sighed, wiping the tears from her face. After rinsing her mouth out she drank some of the water. “I just hate throwing up,” she said
.

  He reached down, put his hand on the back her neck and rubbed gently. “Everyone does.” She smiled up at him as he gently placed a kiss on the top of her head then straightened, indicating they needed to get back into the car. “Come on,” he said helping her up.

  As she stood up, she noticed that not for a single second had he stopped observing the area. She started to feel like they were being watched, but couldn’t decide if she felt this way because Jasper was so alert or if they were actually being watched. With that thought, she turned and quickly made her way back to the car.

  Once inside, Jasper started back down the highway. He kept his rifle within reach. Lena decided to follow suit and kept her pistol on her lap. She unconsciously locked the doors and remained quiet as they continued down the road.

  “Shit!”

  Lena jumped with Jasper’s exclamation. “What? What’s the matter?” she asked, almost fearful of the answer. She looked along the highway trying to see what he was seeing. There was no movement, nothing. Everything was as it had been until Jasper turned the car off the highway. “Wait,” she said, getting a little panicky. “Where the hell are you going?”

  “We need gas,” he said quietly. Of all the things that Lena did not want to hear, perhaps this was the worst.

  “Can’t we wait until we get out of town?” Lena shook a little. The sun had set, darkness was settling on them, and the last thing she wanted was to search for a gas station and stop to get gas. The mere act of getting the gas was no easy task and doing it in the dark would be even more difficult. Not to mention the fact that they were in a city that clearly had hostiles in it. There was no way of knowing what kind of danger they were getting themselves into.

  “Don’t worry,” Jasper said. “I’ll try to stay as far away from the downtown area as I can.” She wasn’t relieved. Something about this place just felt wrong.

  “I’ve stopped going to big cities,” Lena confessed. Even when things were normal, she hadn’t been much of a big city kind of girl. Much like on her small farm, she generally did better on her own. When the end had come, she had resigned herself to stay on that farm as long as she could. Things were uncomplicated there and she missed the simplicity of her solitary life.

  Jasper wished he could comfort her in some way. He didn’t want to get off the highway, but he had no choice. It was a whole different ball game once they got off the highway. Most of the others seemed to avoid the major highways and stuck to the inner cities, one of the reasons he had avoided them as much as possible.

  He had stumbled upon Lena because he needed to stock up on supplies. Farms sometimes had fresh fruits and vegetables and that was always a welcome surprise. Finding Lena must have been some kind of act of God because he hadn’t met other normal people in all of his travels. Because he was a drifter, he always assumed that if there were any other normal people they were probably just like him. Lena had proven to be nothing like he expected. Just meeting her had made him realize just how important it was to return to the O.A.S.I.S. and take care of what he had needed to do a long time ago.

  As they drove further into Los Angeles, Jasper cursed himself for not noticing the gas gauge earlier. The last thing he wanted to do was put Lena in danger. Speaking of which, she ought to know what kind of danger he was getting her into. “Listen, Lena,” he said. She was already on the edge of her seat and he considered how to warn her without frightening her too much.

  “Have you ever been here?” she asked tentatively.

  “Once. Before things got bad,” he said, twisting the root of his dreadlock. “Listen, Lena,” he said again. “Big cities are really dangerous places.”

  Lena tried to scoff, though she also looked at him in alarm. “You think I haven’t picked up on that already?” She got a little more nervous when he pulled the car onto the side of the road.

  Turning towards her, he put his arms onto her shoulders, unconsciously rubbing his thumbs back and forth. “I just think you need to know what we are getting into before we go.”

  She saw the concern in his eyes. “I understand.”

  “Big cities mean bigger problems, okay?”

  She nodded. They had already seen more of the others in one place than Lena had encountered in all the years at her farm, and she supposed this was what Jasper meant—that there would be many more of the others in a big city. Lena nodded again to let him know she understood. The danger of their predicament left little time for questions and even less time for answers.

  Quickly he leaned forward and kissed her. His thumbs continued to stroke her arms and before Lena could lean into the kiss he pulled back. Neither said anything further as he pulled the car back onto the road and they headed down the dark street.

  The streetlights were off and each building they passed was dark and abandoned. Lena could imagine that this was just what it had looked when things had first gone bad.

  Jasper was slowly driving through the neighborhood, his headlights scanning over the houses. Lena knew that they had to make the choice of leaving their lights on to see things before they got to them or to turn them off and avoid disturbing anything. Although Lena would have preferred to stop somewhere and hunker down for the night, she was sure Jasper knew what he was doing.

  His eyes stayed on the road and his body hunched over the steering wheel. Lena knew her own body was similarly tensed. She was nervous and kept her gun close. The roads were clear, but Lena could see movements just outside the area that their lights reached.

  “Did you…” she started to ask Jasper if he’d seen them too. Jasper’s nod frightened her a little.

  “Look!” she all but shouted when she saw a gas station up ahead. But Jasper didn’t turn into it; instead he kept driving forward, cautiously avoiding the major roads. Lena tensed, looking over at the station. Seeing movement in the shadows explained his hesitation.

  His extraordinary control gnawed away at her confidence and she felt scared. His ability to take charge with quiet assurance had both drawn her to him and had driven fear into her. He was powerful, more so than she had ever imagined.

  “Not here,” he said pointing to the left. At this point he was seriously considering getting back onto the highway and trying to find another way around. He knew though that they were lucky they’d made it as far as they had.

  Looking over at Lena, he realized just how beautiful she was. The loose tendrils of her hair softened her face. Her eyes glistened with what he knew was fear, but it was masked by her determination to be brave. He couldn’t help but smile. She was really beautiful. He knew she was tall and her long legs curled under her in the seat.

  Shaking his head, he tried to focus on the road. He slid his hand over to her lap and rubbed her leg. She looked up at him quickly, her eyes as big as saucers. Their blue shade had darkened and he felt himself harden thinking of those eyes. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” She smiled at him, making him groan out loud.

  He removed his hand and refocused on the road. Taking a left, he saw another small gas station a little ways off the main strip. “That’s where we’re headed,” he said, pointing. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best he could ask for. It didn’t look as safe as he might have hoped but it wasn’t too close to where he knew the others were probably converging.

  He shut the headlights off well before they reached the station. It looked deserted, but Lena knew better than to go by looks alone. She held her pistol lightly as Jasper drove past the station and found a place to turn around. He was checking the place out before he decided to stop there. She had done the same kind of thing in the past. It was better to be able to avoid the others altogether, if possible, than to take the risk of getting caught.

  There was no movement; the area seemed deserted. Jasper drove slowly and quietly. He scanned the surrounding area until he finally made a decision and pulled into the station. He drove around to the back of the station where Lena knew he could pump the gas from out of the storage basin beneath.
He didn’t turn the car off, but put it into park and sat quietly for a moment.

  Lena had never filled her truck at night. She knew that Jasper had weapons and supplies in the back of his truck, so abandoning it and getting another car wasn’t really an option right now. It would be faster to fuel the truck than to find another vehicle with a full gas tank and transfer everything to it.

  He didn’t say anything; instead he checked his rifle, grabbed his pack and got out of the car. Lena sat there a moment, unsure of what to do. For a few minutes she couldn’t see Jasper. He had gone behind the truck. Then she saw him inside the small store. His rifle was held in his arms close to his face as he stalked through the facility. She watched him and realized she missed having him beside her. She scolded herself mentally for getting so attached to him. Although she felt that there was something there, she knew their relationship was most likely based on physical needs.

  She didn’t kid herself. Although he had kissed her a few times and touched her intimately, she knew he was still just a man. Maybe she would have reacted the same way to any man she met after so long alone. But she couldn’t deny the fact that she had liked the way he made her feel. He wasn’t hard on the eyes and, if she was being truthful with herself, she liked his prowess. Even watching him stalk through the convenience store made her flush as she thought of the muscles that were hidden under his shirt. He was a good-looking man who had clearly taken care of himself even before things had gone bad.

  Looking down at herself, Lena realized how disgusting she must look. Her clothes weren’t new; instead she was dressed in some of her clothes from before the apocalypse. She wore an old maroon t-shirt, jeans and a light jacket. Nothing screamed “gorgeous.” Then again, it was inconceivable to wear heels and a skirt. Anyone dressing like that would have a hard time surviving these days.

  Maybe that was why she liked Jasper so much. He had survived through something that had killed so many people and had changed most of the survivors into crazed animals, but he had somehow maintained his humanity. He could have attacked her, raped her, or worse. Instead he had saved her and protected her.