by Geo Dell
Once they were across, she talked to Tom; Tom pretty much was their leader (I don’t know if I like that. Do we need leaders?), and they decided to come back the next day, which was two days ago, and see if they could find me. They didn’t know about the cave. Candace had thought I was just climbing the rock above the river. They searched along the back of the Public Square, or what’s left of it, and down towards Coffeen Street. If they had come back down one more road towards the river, they would’ve found the cave then. Maybe they hadn’t realized there was a road there at all; so they just followed the path of the river, thinking I was living in one of the fallen down buildings along the banks.
They had seen me from quite a way off, crossing the square as they were heading back. It looked to them like I was heading for the north side, maybe crossing one of the bridges, but by the time they got there, I was gone. They even began to wonder if I had seen them and hidden on purpose, maybe out of fear. They had searched for a while and then, just when they had been about to quit for the day, Bob realized that he could smell smoke. As soon as he said it, everyone else realized they had smelled it all along as well. After that, it didn’t take long to find the cave. They just followed the smell of smoke down to the lower road and found the cave.
So that was that, and now we are six. Tom, Thomas Evans, he was their leader as I said. He’s an older guy, in his late thirties. Used to be a truck driver.
Candace Loi (Don’t call her Candy. I don’t know why.). She’s nineteen and was visiting her grandparents. She was from Syracuse. I thought she was with Tom. I think Tom thought so as well.
Bob and Jan Dove. Bob is a little older than Jan, in his fifties, and he said he is a mechanic. Jan does, did, data processing.
And Lydia. Her real name is Marcia George. Lydia is her middle name. She said she always liked Lydia better. She was still in school, local college. I guess she's the same age as Candace, nineteen.
And last but not least, me.
We spent all of yesterday getting their stuff from across the river and bringing it over to the cave. I thought that was weird. Why go get stuff anyway? You can have anything you want. It’s all free. But in another way I guess I understand. We’ve lost everything. We want to hang on to what little we still do have. We’re all going to stay here. And we talked about what’s next, and what we know about what happened.
I said I had been kind of planning to leave once spring came. Head south or west, somewhere where I wouldn’t have to worry about winter. Tom said it may be that, where it would normally have been warmer, it won’t be anymore. He said it depends on what happened. None of us really know. He thinks it might be smarter to stay here. We could stock up this cave. We could even hunt. He said he’s sure there are deer around. Bob agreed with him, at least on there being deer around.
I told them about the footprints by my house. They said they had seen footprints as well. They had gone out Coffeen Street and seen the tracks of three or four people going in and out of a small store there. They had called out, but no one had answered. They had had second thoughts about calling out too. They weren’t armed. What if someone shot at them?
That brought my original thoughts to mind about a weapon. I mentioned the sporting goods store, and we all agreed to make a trip out there soon.
We talked about cars and trucks and agreed it would be good to get an SUV or truck of some kind if we could find one that will run, as they might be the only vehicles that could drive around as bad as things are torn up. They have also tried starting a few vehicles with no success. I mentioned my electronic brain idea, and Tom said he had thought of the same thing. Turns out he’s also a mechanic. I guess I can see why they chose him to lead. I feel kind of useless around the guy though. We agreed to try finding an older vehicle. Tom thinks our chances of getting one running are good. We’ll see what we can find.
The first night together was good. The best I’ve slept since this thing started. Just not being alone, you know?
I guess I’ll end on that note...
CHAPTER THREE
To Live Again
~March 12th~
Mike closed his notebook and stuffed it down into his pack. Looking around the cave, he was surprised how different a few more warm bodies could make it. It didn’t seem as cold, so oppressively quiet, so echo filled with any kind of sharp noise, so… so different. But different in a good way.
Candace had been watching from across the cave where she had made a little area for herself. She hadn’t wanted to interrupt while Mike was writing, but now that he seemed finished, she walked over to him.
“This was really nice of you,” she said as she walked up. “We were staying in that old school building. None too stable. Last night was the best sleep I’ve had in a while.”
“Funny,” Mike replied, “I was thinking the same thing. For me it was just having others around. People.”
Candace smiled. She’s beautiful, Mike thought. He wasn’t normally a fan of tattoos, but she had some sort of tribal stuff that snaked up under her shirt sleeve. Just a hint of ink where her shirt didn’t quite meet the top of her Levi's made him wonder just exactly where the ink ended. She caught his eyes and smiled again.
“Mind?” She asked, gesturing at the ground beside him.
“No, sit down,” Mike smiled. “I have no manners at all. How long does it take to devolve? I guess a little over a week.” He smiled again.
She laughed as she sat down. The silence stretched out for a few seconds, each of them looking around the cave as the others talked or settled in for the night. They both spoke at once.
“Sorry,” Candace said and laughed.
“No, really. It’s that devolved thing again. Go ahead.”
She fixed her eyes on him. “I was just wondering what you were planning on doing. I mean, have you thought about leaving? I know you spoke a bit about it yesterday when you were talking to Tom. But I could see you weren’t quite ready to fall in with the Tomites yet.” She lowered her voice for the last.
Mike looked at her levelly. “Yeah… I guess it does show. I don’t dislike him. I don’t even disagree with what he said. I just… I just don’t know. We don’t click, know what I mean?”
“Yeah, I do.” Candace answered. “It’s the same with me. I can think. I don’t need someone to do it for me.”
“Exactly,” Mike agreed. “But it’s a little more too, like Alpha male shit. This is my tribe. Me chief.” Mike finished in a near whisper.
Candace giggled but quickly clamped a hand over her mouth while nodding her head in agreement.
Mike continued. “I’m not really an Alpha male type of guy,
but I’m not a dumb sheep either.”
“Me either,” Candace agreed, her giggles under control. She fixed him with her serious eyes once more. “So what will you do?”
“Probably like I said, like everyone else said, leave. But I don’t see why the south or the west wouldn’t be a good direction to go in. We’ll all see, I guess, as spring comes on, or as…”
“What?” Candace asked.
“Well, as this goes on. It might not be over yet. There might be more changes ahead. The days have slowed down, almost seemed to stop for a while last week when the sun just hung in the sky. Maybe what was supposed to happen happened? Now the sun’s rising in the wrong place in the sky. Did the Earth's spin reverse, that fast? Weren’t some people claiming we’d fall off the Earth? Something like that?” He took a deep breath.
“I guess I’m just waiting to see how this goes. What happens next? But in a few months, not far into spring, I’ll probably leave. Whatever has happened, is happening, should be over by then,” He smiled. “I guess that was a long drawn out answer.”
“No. Not really,” Candace answered. “I’m in the same place. I’m not sure what happened either, or if it’s all over. But, I don’t think I want to live in a cave forever either.” She looked around, “But who knows; maybe it’s come back to that?”
Mi
ke shrugged his shoulders.
“Anyway,” she continued. “I… I just wanted you to know I’m seeing it the same way as you. I mean… I mean I want to be on your side of it.” She locked her eyes on his and gave a firm nod, then flipped her short, black hair out of her eyes. She firmed her mouth, set her jaw and spoke once more. “I'd like to go get my things, Move over here with you.” Her dark eyes settled on his own. “Be with you... I mean be together.”
“Quick,” Mike said.
She nodded and smiled, “Maybe it’s a quick world now. I’m taking you at face value, I guess. You don’t have a little harem locked away farther back in these caves, do you?” She smiled.
Mike laughed. “Not hardly.”
“Well then,” she asked quietly, her eyes serious.
Mike nodded, which caused a huge smile to spread across her face. His own smile answered it. But, he thought, did she really mean…? He didn’t complete the thought as she stood and walked across the cave to where she had put her things and spent her first night. She turned and looked back at him. Mike stood and walked over to help her move her things over to his side of the cave.
Several pairs of eyes watched the move.
~
“Guess that settles that,” Robert Dove said to his wife Jan.
His wife nodded, a slight smile on her face. For the last few days Tom had been pushing Candace. Jan had disapproved. Let the girl make up her own mind, she had thought.
“Maybe it’s for the best,” she said now. “That young man is much more likable, Bobby.”
Bob nodded in agreement. The fly in the ointment might be Lydia who had been making eyes at Tom since they’d first met, but who, for the last few days, had only had eyes for Mike. Bob looked over just as a look passed between Tom and Lydia. Oh, he thought.
Jan shook her head. She had noticed the look pass between them too. “Maybe if those two get together it will level everything out,” she said softly. Tom had made it clear he was interested in Candace, not Lydia, but the girl had made her choice. Tom would have to accept it. Jan felt Candace had made the better choice of the two. She turned her attention back to the conversation she had been having with Bob.
Tom watched as Candace moved her sleeping bags and back pack over to Mike’s side of the cave. He didn’t see what she saw in Mike, but it was her choice, and she wouldn’t get a second chance with him. He frowned at his own thoughts. Don’t be an ass, he told himself. It’s not that serious. He looked over and caught Lydia's eyes; the question was right there. He nodded, and she sprang to her feet like a rabbit. A mean look on her young, pouty face as she looked towards Candace. The look went unanswered by Candace. She turned her back to the girl as she walked back over to Mike’s side of the cave.
~
Lydia quickly gathered her things and moved them over to Tom’s area. Stupid bitch, she told herself. She can have the cave man dude. She’d only wanted Tom all along, even the last few days. Chasing after Mike the last few days had only been an attempt on her part to make Tom jealous. Tom would take her out of here. She hated this place and everything to do with it, always had. Tom was tough, tougher than the other guy. She didn’t think of it in terms of Alpha Male and territory, but it came down to the same thing. Tom was the top dog. Her top dog.
The fire burned lower as everyone settled in for the night. Some happy, some worried, some undecided, but everyone along for the ride.
~ March 13th ~
Bob leaned around the hood and looked through the windshield of the old Suburban. He nodded. “Try it, Tom.”
The motor turned over a half dozen times then suddenly fired and rumbled to life. Tom gave it a little more gas, pulled out the old fashioned choke. The motor smoothed out and began to run a little better.
Bob backed away from the engine compartment, a large smile on his face. “Know what this means?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard above the noisy truck.
Tom grinned and nodded back. “As long as they’re not electronically controlled, they’ll run. We should find a few more.”
Bob nodded in agreement.
They had found the old Suburban in a lot out in back of one of the car dealerships on outer Washington Street. The lot itself was wrecked; the buildings not much better, but hundreds of new cars and trucks sat on the cracked pavement, or pointed their noses or tails at the sky where they were half buried. The Suburban had been set up with a plow, and they all agreed it was probably just used to plow the lot.
Before they had even gone looking for a vehicle, Tom and Bob had gone hunting for a small gasoline powered engine. Lawn mower, leaf blower, it didn’t matter, just something small without an electronic ignition or brain. They’d come up with a heavy duty chain saw. Several tugs and a little choke had gotten it running. That had convinced them that it would be worth finding an older, full size truck.
“We could convert one of these newer trucks. It would take some work but if we can find the right parts we could do it,” Tom said.
“Maybe,” Bob agreed. “Trouble is finding a block that’s still the same. Heads, intake, it’s a lot to hope for. It would be easier to just fix the old stuff up. New tires, battery, we could even do the axles if we absolutely had to.”
Tom nodded his head. “Hmm,” he grumbled. “Guess so.”
Bob turned away. It was obvious to him that Tom didn’t like being disagreed with or second guessed. Yes, parts were parts, and if they were just parts, no problem. There were even kits to convert non-electronic ignition motors over to electronic ignition, but not the other way around. There were motors built mostly for racing applications that were designed to use carburetors and simple distributors. There were things they could do, but it wasn’t simple black and white.
He had been seeing more and more of this close minded attitude from Tom since they had moved into the cave. Tom had lost his place as leader. It didn’t matter that he had been nearly the only one who had seen himself that way. He had seen the situation that way, and now the situation had changed. He didn’t see himself as leader any longer, and he didn’t like it. Oh well, Bob thought. He’d get over it, or he wouldn’t. There was nothing for it except to watch it happen, whatever way it happened.
Tom let the truck idle high for a few minutes then reset the choke dropping the idle down to normal.
“We got wheels,” Lydia said happily. She, Mike, Candace and Jan had come walking back from further down the lot. Pulled by the sound of the truck starting from where they had been searching for other vehicles that would be good candidates for starting.
“We found three others that seem as though they might work out,” Mike said. “One's an old crew cab state truck the other two are old pickups. All three are four wheel drives.” He grinned at Bob.
Bob laughed. “Well, let’s go get them,” he said. He turned and started away.
“Hey,” Tom said, leaning against the door of the truck, “Wouldn’t you rather drive?”
Bob laughed again. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Much rather.” Everybody piled into the Suburban. Tom pulled out of the back of the lot and headed back in the direction the others had come from.
Mike ~ March 13th
Man, it’s been a long day. We walked out Washington Street to the car dealerships. Everything’s torn up out there, but there are tons or cars and trucks out there. We found three trucks that we got running, and we drove them back. So we have a pickup truck, a suburban and a big four door state truck, one of those you always used to see along the highway when they were doing road repair. There were a few others we found that also ran, but they were in such bad shape that we left them.
Tom wanted to build one. I mean take one of the new trucks and put old parts on it. I got the idea from Bob that it probably wouldn’t work out the way Tom thought that it would. The right parts would be hard to find. I could see the idea, the appeal of a newer vehicle so we wouldn’t have to be concerned about break downs. But I could see Bob’s point of view too. I think it pissed Tom off tho
ugh. But it seems that almost everything pisses Tom off.
I didn’t write this in here yet, but Candace and I are together. It just happened that fast. I was surprised in a way, but in another way I wasn’t all that surprised. Who knows how long this world will last, what it was that really happened? Maybe there is no time for slow anymore.
Candace said that, and once I thought about it, I agreed. Things are so different. And she’s right for me. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened this fast in the old world. Maybe it wouldn’t have happened at all. But everything’s changed. It’s all different, and this seems right. It seems like the way it should have happened with her and me, the right way for it all to work.
It also seemed to work out for the others as well. By that I mean Tom ended up with Lydia. She’s a lot younger than he is, but like I said, it’s a different world now. They seem to be happy together. I thought I felt some animosity from both of them at first. But either I imagined it, or they’ve moved past it, gotten over it, something like that.
We haven’t discussed leaving again. It’ll come up. Candace and I want to go. I think Bob and Jan want to go too. Tom and Lydia seem to be against it. Lydia keeps talking about how none of us know what it might be like anywhere else, like she wants to throw that out before we even discuss leaving at all. Here we have food, shelter, what’s so bad? I guess we have been talking about it without really talking about it at all.
Tom backs up everything she says with a nod of his head. He pointed out we’re in an area of mainly limestone, that’s what made this cave, and we may not find that anywhere else. At least not easily. Maybe they’re right. Hell, they make sense, but it’s the attitude. The rest of us bend. They refuse to.
We decided to go out to Arsenal Street tomorrow to the sporting goods store, and also look at some super markets out there, something else I didn’t check out while I was out there.