by Geo Dell
Tim and Annie had made their way to the garage and then found themselves drafted and made part of the work crew. Annie was in the third stall laying out the parts they would need for the lift on the pickup truck while Tim worked at mounting the oversize tires to new, larger rims, using a pair of heavy iron bars and his body weight to accomplish the work. He and Annie joked back and forth as they worked.
They were using a small twelve volt air-compressor to inflate the tires after they had them mounted. They both seemed to be enjoying themselves, Mike thought, and they seemed happy to be in each other's company.
Outside, near the far end of the garage, the chain-fall had been set up, and a group led by Janet Dove, which included Sandy and Susan, were hoisting a large cow up into the air.
“Mike,” Janet said as he and Ronnie passed by on their way out of the Garage.
Mike paused.
“We would like to smoke most of this meat... If we're going to be here a few days, I thought...”
Mike nodded. “Yeah. Might as well, Jan. We have the time,” He assured her, “And, it'll help to have the meat with us, who knows what's ahead.” He shrugged.
Janet Dove smiled, turned away, and Mike stood watching as the huge cow began to lift into the air from the back of the pickup truck before he and Ronnie turned and walked away.
A few minutes later, the two of them fell in with Candace and Patty who were sifting through what the chain stores had to offer in the way of clothing, canned goods and whatever else they came across that they could find a use for. They passed by Lilly who had taken over the toy department, blocked off one aisle, and was keeping Brian and Janelle busy. She smiled and waved as they passed. Janelle waved back. Her dark eyes finally looking rested and happy.
Brian had built himself the biggest Lincoln Log village that Mike had ever seen and was now busy populating it with dozens of green, plastic Army Men. Mike smiled and Brian took the time out of his game to smile back at he and Ronnie. He held a large plastic Tyrannosaurus Rex in one hand which seemed to Mike about to wreak havoc on the village and its population of Army Men.
A half dozen trips with Candace and Patty, and late afternoon turned into early evening. Fires were burning to smoke the meat. Two large roasts were spitted over a huge fire pit made of field stone. A stew was bubbling in a pot that had been suspended over the flames. Nearly everyone had found a reason to stop by the area Janet Dove had set aside for cooking, most arriving just as she had been about to send some others out looking for everyone to round them up for dinner. The Dog was running around in circles, happily racing from person to person, tail wagging crazily. The smell of roasting meat hung heavy in the still, cool air.
~Early Evening~
Everyone sat close together at several wooden picnic tables that Janet had drafted a few volunteers to bring over from the collapsed section of the motel. They had sat in a small clearing not far from the building, untouched, while everything around them had been leveled.
The temperature was in the low forties, but with the early evening sun still shining, it felt much warmer.
Mike sat next to Candace, Ronnie on his other side. Across the table, Molly sat with Nell. They were both laughing, involved in conversation with each other. It was the happiest that Mike had seen Nell or Molly.
Canned potatoes, fresh beef and venison, a stew that held a bit of everything in it and a steaming platter of peas dominated the table center. Everyone had heaped up their plates. Too long eating thrown together meals or energy bars had left them hungry for real food.
Their basic protein needs had been met, but there was nothing like real food to make you... Happy, Mike decided. He looked around the table at all the smiling faces. It was actually a mood elevator, he decided.
“What's on your mind, Baby?” Candace asked. Her eyes smiled, but her mouth wore a question he had come to know was more serious than her smile insinuated.
He bent forward and kissed her, making the smile on her face spread wider still. “I was thinking how happy everyone looked.” He turned his head and let his eyes sweep the tables once more, then turned back to Candace whose eyes and face now wore another look he was becoming familiar with. He bent forward and kissed her once more. “I'm pretty sure I love you,” He told her.
She laughed, “Pretty sure!” She slapped his arm with one hand. “You better be more than pretty sure, Mister.”
Mike laughed and kissed her again. “Positive,” he said. “I'd be lost without you.” His eyes turned serious. “That's the truth,” His voice dropped to a near whisper as he leaned even closer. “I love you so much that I don't have words for it. I only know it's real. I only know I need you.” He kissed her once more and sat back up to catch Annie giggling and looking away.
Candace laughed beside him. An easy laugh that eased the seriousness of the conversation.
“I hope we'll have some time later on,” she said, her voice still low, husky.
“I'll make sure of it,” Mike told her.
“I was looking at that garage building,” Ronnie said from beside him.
Mike nodded.
“It's one of those industrial prefabricated jobs. I've put up a few, but I had no idea how well engineered they were. They hold up pretty well, or at least this one did. The buildings not really damaged at all.”
“I noticed that too,” Mike agreed, “What are you thinking?”
“Well,” Ronnie grinned, “When we get where we're going, it may not be a bad idea for a dwelling... or dwellings. At least for a temporary dwelling until we build... if we build. Lightweight, easy to put up. Easy to insulate. Not bad in an earthquake, if that stuff's not completely done with us.”
Mike was nodding his head. “I'm for it, but are they hard to come by? I mean, where could we get one?”
“Not as hard as it seems. There are outlets where you can buy them in larger cities. And there are thousands already set up. We could take them apart pretty easily, take them where we want them and put them back up. All the structural supports are pretty much the same. You just add more or take away to make the building the size you need. Very lightweight, so they'd be easy to transport. They'd go up or down pretty fast,” Ronnie finished.
“Has my vote,” Bob added. “Fast, easy. They seem solid. It will save us a ton of time.”
“I've seen them around. I think it's a good idea. We wouldn't have to worry about wooden structures falling down on us.” Mike looked around. “Almost all the wooden structures are down. Concrete seems okay, for the most part, steel. But wooden structures just give too easily. Putting them up fast would also be a plus,” he finished. He raised his eyes from the ground - he had a habit of looking at the ground to visualize his thoughts - and saw that Molly and Nell had been listening to their conversation. They were nodding their heads in agreement.
“That garage is really solid,” Molly agreed.
“Cement's cracked here and there, but the building itself held up really well,” Nell agreed. “I don't even like walking into a wooden building anymore. You can feel it move, hear the creaks and groans... pops.” She shook her head.
Mike and Ronnie both nodded.
”It's a good plan,” Mike said. He turned his head to Molly. “Where did you learn to turn wrenches?” he asked her.
Molly smiled. “My dad had a race car. It started out as a hobby but became something else. He'd work on it all week long and then run it in races on the weekends.” She smiled shyly. “When I was a little girl, as far back as I can remember, I used to go out and watch.” She laughed. “Pretty soon I was fetching wrenches, parts.” She laughed again. “The first time I came in with greasy hands, I thought my Mother was going to die. When I was fifteen, my Dad bought an old beat to shit Mustang. A sixty-four. It was a project car, he'd said. We'd work on it in our spare time together, finish it up and sell it for a profit.” She smiled and her eyes misted as she seemed to be looking back through the years.
“It took nearly a year of work. That was also
the time I was eligible to get my permit. The day I got my license, he handed me the keys,” she finished, smiling happily at the memory.
“Pretty nice,” Candace said.
“Yeah, except it got smashed flat when this,” she lifted her hands and gestured helplessly, “happened. But once we're where we're going to be, I think I'll try to find another one, or maybe a two door sixty-two Chevy Impala. I've always liked the way those Chevy’s look.” She shrugged, “Crazy, I guess, but I really think I'm gonna do it. There must be one somewhere.”
“I can see that,” Patty said. “Or something else worth rebuilding.”
More than a few heads nodded in agreement.
“Sometimes,” Patty added as an afterthought. “The thing you find is better than the thing you thought you wanted.”
Nell looked at Molly. Molly smiled, and Nell leaned closer and kissed her.
“You two?” Candace asked.
“Nell tempted me,” Molly said.
“It's like Patty said, sometimes the thing you find is better than the thing you thought you would find... or want. I hadn't expected this much out of life in the old world let alone this one,” Nell said smiling, but serious. She worked her hand into Molly's and leaned closer to her.
Mike's eyes swept across Patty's face, expecting to see a smile but finding a distracted, sadness on her face instead. Patty swept it away so quickly though that he wasn't sure just a second later that it had really been there at all. Maybe, he decided, he had imagined it. After all, Patty had found the better thing she hadn't known she would find in Ronnie. There would be no reason for that sadness to be on her face. He found his own hand holding Candace's, and she leaned into him for a kiss.
“Get a room, you guys,” Tim said as he and Annie passed by. Annie was blushing but had a huge smile on her face.
“Horn dogs,” Tim told her as they walked away, laughing with each other and holding hands as they went.
“Horn dogs?” Mike asked.
“I don't know about you but I am no horn dog,” Janet Dove joked as she passed by.
The thought of prim and proper Janet Dove making a statement like that caused everyone to crack up. Janet stopped, a shocked look on her face.
“Good one, Jan,” Candace said.
“I can't believe I said that,” Janet said.
Everyone cracked up then, including Janet Dove.
~Evening~
Candace lay in the crook of Mike's arm as they talked quietly.
“Gotta go in about five minutes,” Mike told her. “My watch.”
“No,” Candace said. “You can't go if you can't get out of bed. Besides, we paid for the room for the night,” she finished and laughed.
Mike chuckled. “This is nice. Privacy, first we've had in... well, forever.”
“When we leave, we'll be back to getting none at all again,” Candace told him. She snuggled against his side, one hand resting against the flat of his stomach, her index finger drawing small circles. “But,” she lifted her eyes to his. “I guess I have to let you go. Just think about that alone time for later.” She kissed him softly. “Something to keep you thinking about it.” She turned away, swung her feet to the floor and began to get dressed.
“You do give me things to think about,” Mike told her. He trailed his fingers down her back, bent forward and kissed her shoulder.
Candace looked back at him. “Do you want to make that watch?”
Mike laughed. “No, but I have no choice at all.” He leaned forward and kissed her mouth. “Later,” he said.
“Later,” She agreed.
~
The room had not been in bad shape. It was funny how fate could be, Mike had thought. One wing flattened, one untouched. From sleeping in a cave a day ago, to sleeping in a real bed the next.
The room was dusty, a slight musty, unused odor, but dry. The roof had held up. The walls seemed untouched.
“Where are you going?” Mike asked.
“With you.”
“You're not on, Babe,” Mike grinned.
“Correction. I wasn't on. You had Patty on, but she wanted to spend time with Ronnie, so we switched. That way, when we're done, we can come back here again...” She cocked her eyebrows. “And take our time?”
“What, not be rushed?” Mike asked.
She stood and turned into him as he was getting ready to leave. A beautiful woman wearing only a pair of white socks, which was all she had managed to get on. She stretched up onto her tip toes and kissed him. His hands pulled her close. She pulled away with a smile.
“I thought you were coming with me,” Mike said.
“I am,” She giggled.
He reached for her once more, but she skipped away. “We'll never get there, Baby,” she told him.
“As it is, I'll probably be thinking about you throughout the whole watch and waiting to get back here. God, Candace, you're so beautiful.”
She looked at him seriously. “Keep that up and we'll never get out of this room.” She crossed the short distance between them and kissed him once more. “Say it just once more?”
“You're beautiful,” Mike told her as he pulled her close.
~
It was about an hour and a half past sunset when Mike took over one of the perimeter guard posts from Susan. It was simply the far corner of the garage complex that overlooked a field and the highway beyond it.
“Quiet?” He asked.
“Pretty much. The dog... what's that dog's name anyway?” she asked.
“He doesn't have one,” Mike admitted. “We, uh... we just call him The Dog, you know. He survived. He got through it same as us; he made it, you know. He's The Dog.” Mike finished lamely.
“Oh. Sounds like a little guilt there, Mike. Maybe we should all get together and name it,” Susan suggested.
Mike nodded.
“Well, anyway... The Dog kept looking off towards the highway. He didn't, like, bark or anything. I thought maybe deer, cows, something else. But with the meat drying, it could have drawn anything at all. The fires and so many people should be enough to keep anything away. Even if it's wolves, they'll probably stay away, right? I just thought you should know about it.”
Mike nodded. “Could be something, but you're probably right. Most likely it's nothing. I imagine the smell of the meat will draw every carnivore in the area. That's okay as long as they don't try to bother us. There will be plenty of scraps when we're gone.”
Susan nodded this time. “Mike,” she hesitated and Mike nodded for her to continue. “Well, I wondered what you thought about Jan and Bob's idea of settling in the wilderness. You know, deep in the middle of nowhere... a new Nation.”
Mike nodded slowly. “I think they really want to do it. I think they really believe in it, Susan,” he shrugged. Her eyes questioned him. “Okay... and... And I wish I could believe in it they way they do. Not that I believe it won't work. I think anything we do will take hard work, a good deal of hard work,” he shrugged again. “And I think they'll put the work in, I really do. Maybe you're asking me what I want to do, and I can't tell you that. I don't know... I haven't decided. It's something Candace and I would have to take the time to sit down and decide, and we just haven't had the time to do that.”
“You know, in my head the old world was selfish. It was all about selfish. The me-generation? Something like that. And I'm not saying I was any better. I wasn’t. Oh, I had my friends, and I helped them when I could, but when it came down to push or shove, it was me. It was me, and a lot of the people I knew, worked for, with, associated with, were the same way. Social on the surface, but scratch that surface and it's a different story. Push or shove... and not an overly hard push or shove either.” He looked at her and Susan nodded.
“At least for me it's been that way. I guess I sound cynical. But it's not that way anymore. I'm not that way anymore. It's not about me. It's about me and Candace. And it really isn't about us either. It's deeper. There are people here I've really come to care
about. I mean really care about. Do you realize that I haven't watched T.V. Since the night this all started? Sounds ridiculous, right? None of us have, but I did computer work. Scripting, C, C plus, plus, graphics, more. I used to turn my computer on, turn on the T.V. for company and go to work. Eighteen hours sometimes, even longer on occasion. It... that... was my life. No relationships. No one to really care about. No time for it. And everyone I knew was the same way. Superficial. Shallow? Yeah, that too. Well... I don't do that anymore; I don't want to.”
Susan nodded. “Everyone I knew was too busy living to think about how they were living,” she said.
“That I do understand,” Mike said. “But not now, you know, somewhere, in some secure building, on some secure server I have a couple of bank accounts that were well over a million dollars each.” He laughed. “All means nothing now, Susan, nothing. I am happy with what I have. I don't want what I used to have.” He sighed.
“The Nation? Probably a great idea. I can think of only a few things that I could do that would matter as much to me as that does to them. Kids... love... Candace, you know? Do it right, not like the old world. And that's the rub. It depends on Candace... and the baby. She's trying to get pregnant. It seems like almost everyone is.” He rubbed the flat of his palm along his jaw feeling the stubble that was softening into a beard. “If she wanted to do it, yes. If she wanted to travel to Alaska, yes. When the time comes, and it's probably not all that far away in the scheme of things, but when the time comes for Bob and those that have committed to go with them, and those that will - I know there will be more - when that time comes, if Candace wants to go with them, I'll jump in with both feet. That's the truth of it.”
Susan's eyes were misted. “Thank you,” she said.
“Thank you for being long winded and entirely too personal on short notice?” Mike asked.
Susan laughed. “No, for being honest. I think I'm going to go have a talk with a young lady. I'll see you later, Mike,” she said. She smiled and then walked off into the shadows of the night.