I stepped back as if it were acid.
“What?”
“I’ll lock the door but I don’t want that. I’ve never touched a gun and I don’t plan on starting now. I’m actually scared of them.”
“Fair enough. But I’m gonna work on you getting over it.”
“Dodge, seriously, if there are people left, are we really wanting to shoot them?”
“We may not have a choice. Lock the door and find a weapon, just in case. Please.”
“I’ll do that. Mark had a baseball bat.”
“Good.” He finally opened the door, glanced back at me with a nod and then left.
I stood there, by the front door, peering out the wide window. Dodge got in the car. He didn’t move with confidence like he usually did. He carried a lot of grief on his shoulders and I felt bad for him, really bad for what he’d have to face.
He was wrong; I didn’t believe bad people would break in. In fact, I didn’t believe anyone was coming at all. The baseball bat would stay in the closet, but just because I said I would, I locked the doors.
<><><><>
Dodge was gone for a while. It even hit a point, where I wondered if he was going to come back. I finished getting most of the dust and then I went to the shed for the extra propane tank for the grill. I fired it up, putting a medium pot of water on with a lid.
It took forever to come to a boil even though we had a decent grill. I figured I’d make some pasta with the cans of tomatoes. Something different and filling. It was still too early in the year to hit the local farms to see what may have grown on its own. So fresh food was out. At least for the time being.
I even went to the basement, studied the water heater and found the release spout. Even though I knew no natural gas was flowing through the pipes, I still shut them down. I saw an earthquake movie once where that was reiterated over and over.
I cleaned up, still looking pretty crappy, but I felt better. In my own house, my own clothes. I’d have Dodge fill the buckets to take into the bathroom. Both all the tanks on the commodes were still filled, so our one flush per day was secure.
By the time I finished my miniscule tasks, I was pretty beat, but it was a heck of a lot easier than walking the streets. It was starting to get dark when I heard Dodge pull into the driveway, I was sitting on the back deck with my second glass of wine, and the dinner was in a pot on the grill.
I felt a lump in my stomach when I heard him return, just knowing what he faced, what he had to go through. Imagining that despite what he said, he had to go over there with some hope, that maybe... just maybe …
Finishing my wine, I went into the house and to the door which was still locked. I opened it as he was stepping onto the porch.
For lack of anything else to say, I just said, “Hey.”
He cleared his throat and carried a box. I could see there were pictures in there, a couple toys, and Dodge was dirty. Clearly he had been digging.
I mimicked the clearing of my throat and closed the door. “How are you?”
Dodge only nodded, he was quiet.
“I left a bucket downstairs in the basement by the water heater if you want to wash up.”
“I will thanks.” He placed the box on the table behind the sofa and stared at it. His hand grazed over the contents as if he wanted to grab something from there, but then he retracted it.
“Dodge, if you want to talk.”
“Thank you.” His head lowered and he took a deep breath. “I buried my ex-wife. It took a while, the ground wasn’t as soft as I’d hoped and to find a place in that tiny yard. Then I made a marker.”
“The … the …” I choked on the word. “Children?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t bury them.” He headed off to the direction of the basement door. “I couldn’t.”
“It’s okay, it had to be hard …”
“That’s not it.” He stopped walking. “I couldn’t bury them. They weren’t in the house. They weren’t outside.” He looked over his shoulder at me. “They just weren’t there.”
21. Memories over Wine
I drank the hard stuff to forget the pain, and oddly enough, the end of the world, seemed to end that sickening knot that formed every second I thought of my family. I no longer had to watch happy families at the store or walking down the street. No longer did I drive down the road and see a family in a van, and wish with all my heart it was me.
I didn’t have that for the last few days because everything was gone. Suddenly the world was as numb as I was and I faded into the losses instead of standing out in my suffering.
I was in that company with Dodge.
We sat on my back deck, it was chilly, but a sweater kept me warm. We talked about our families and shared pictures. We both had daughters the exact same age and instead of crying over their suffering we spoke of how cute they were, how grown up they wanted to be.
While the reminiscing made me smile, it did make me miss them, but I appreciated the memories I had at my home.
Dodge didn’t say much about what he found at the house. Just that the children’s beds were unmade, and messy, and that they weren’t there. Although, when Dodge was arrested, it was still early and the trucks still came by daily to collect the remains.
I wonder where they took them. Did they burn them? Or just dump them in the river. Maybe his children were with me in that stadium.
After our meal, and before we settled on the deck with that bottle of wine, Dodge had found Rich’s huge road atlas in the garage along with camping equipment he said was impressive.
That made me laugh. “Rich, always wanted to camp, but he hated to get dirty. I told him, we should just invest in the Doyle method.”
“You must have liked the Doyles. What’s the method?”
I stood from my lounge chair, walked to the railing and leaned forward. “Can’t really see it clearly, but it’s parked at the end of the driveway. See?”
Dodge joined me at the railing. I suppose he could see more than me. “Holy cow. That’s a nice RV.”
“Not RV. How did Mr. Doyle put it when we called it an RV? Winnebago Vista baby.” I shook my head. “When he retired they got it. At first his wife couldn’t get him out of it. Then they took it every summer cross country to see their daughter.”
“That could come in handy.” He returned to his chair and I did too. “So what did your husband do for a living?” Dodge asked.
“A public defender.”
“I’m sorry.”
“That’s terrible.” I shook my head. “Rich could have worked at any practice, but he wanted to help those who needed it. He volunteered twice a month at a legal clinic.”
“You folks are good people. Bet you were good together.”
“Yes. I can say that with certainty. We were that couple that people knew would be together when they could barely walk. Old and gray. Or so we thought.” I finished my wine and poured another. “Unfortunately, we’ll never know.”
“A lot of people will never know.”
“So.” I set down the map. “Why the atlas?”
“I think, Faye, we need to get you recouped and then head out.”
“To where?”
“That’s why I loved finding this atlas. We plot. We think. Then we go.”
“Can I ask why?”
“As much as this is a great house, it won’t cut it in the winter. Plus, we have to think long term. Canned goods won’t last forever. We will eventually run out of bottled water. Maybe not right away, but we should plan. But I think while we are finding a place, before all that, we should do a salvation run.”
When he said Salvation Run, I was confused, I was thinking he wanted to do something spiritual, like finding God somewhere in this mess. “What do you mean?”
“If you and me are alive, I am convinced others are too. We just have to find them.”
“So go on a mission to find people. Where?”
“We make a list of places, like jails and such, hospi
tal wards, places people may be stuck. In this dead quiet world, driving though will make a sound that will carry. If someone’s alive they’ll hear us.”
“No one heard us today.”
“That’s true.”
“Can I play devil’s advocate?” I asked. “What about gas? Food? What about cities. Weren’t they shut down? We can’t effectively travel if we have to keep getting out and walking.’
“We pack supplies as if we aren’t finding stuff. We avoid major roads that would be blocked. We turn if need be. Gas is everywhere; we just have to pump it. They have reserve tanks under the stations. A generator and pump will do that.”
“You’ve been thinking about this,” I said.
“I still have a lot to work out, and we’ll be here a few more days. We prepare.”
“It’s very ambitious,” I said.
Dodge looked at me. “Faye, we owe it to ourselves and to maybe someone out there who needs our help to look. If you didn’t come when you did, I would have died. How many others are in that position?” He paused. “Besides, what else is there to do? Just sit around, watch the sun set and rise. Focus and mobility means survival and salvation.”
I clasped my hands together and leaned forward staring out. “Any thoughts on how we’re going to get around in this salvation run?”
“How did Mr. Doyle say it?” The corner or his mouth lifted in a half smile. “Winnebago Vista. Baby.”
All I could think of was my poor neighbors. They were generous, great people. But I bet they never thought they’d be the ‘stop and shop’ convenience store in the post apocalypse world.
22. Aisle Fourteen
Dodge had an answer for everything. I believed his, ‘If I don’t know it, I’ll make it sound like I do’ attitude was the reason he was divorced multiple times. Because he wasn’t a bad guy, but that part of him drove me a little nuts.
He spent the entire next day after our arrival, going through my neighbors homes. As if everything he had gathered was going to fit in the Doyle RV. It was actually named ‘Fastball’, after a band that did an old song about an elderly couple that took an RV out to die. Or something like that. The name was printed on the side.
I woke up on the second morning after falling asleep looking at the drivers licenses and reading Wilkes’ reports. Not that the reports told me anything I didn’t already know, but Wilkes went through all that trouble, someone should look at them. His watch was secured on my wrist with an added hole I made so it fit.
It was May tenth. Five days since I woke up on that pile of bodies.
I definitely felt stronger and knew I looked better. Even Dodge said that finally I didn’t look like a corpse, joking that he was fearful I was an intelligent zombie.
“You’re color is back. Blood is pumping,” he said. “Told you the red wine and spinach would help. Thank the Doyles.”
The poor Doyles.
I made a mental note to somehow pay homage to them for all the posthumous help they were giving.
It was a warm morning and Dodge wanted to venture out to get the items he needed to create his gas pump.
He also needed a generator and some gas cans.
Of course, he found cans of gas by scouting the neighborhood and used that gas to fill the tank of, yes, the Doyles economy wagon. The second one we took from them.
The ‘Dodge’ plan was to have our gas pumping system strapped to the top of Fastball as we journeyed from small town to small town searching out survivors and eventually a farm.
I wasn’t as optimistic, it sounded kind of like a fairytale to me. And I guess at times, I projected that. I didn’t understand the need for the RV; after all it was a waste of gas. But Dodge insisted, during our trip, we couldn’t keep stopping to find a place to stay.
Off of Route 50 was a string of super stores. Super home store, super grocery centers, and a Walmart.
They were the first true signs we saw of looting and panic shopping. Then again, the shelves weren’t all that bare. At least not the items we needed.
The huge Home Hardware super store had most of what Dodge needed to make his pump system. We brought the items back to the car, and then drove across the lot to Walmart to see if they had a hose that wasn’t in the Home Store.
“Why Walmart?” I asked, thinking if they didn’t have it at the home store, they weren’t having it there.
“Cheaper.” He stepped out of the car.
I rolled my eyes slightly at his bad humor.
“Car parts, Faye. I want to find extra car parts for Fastball. Then we have them.”
There was he was again, always thinking ahead.
Walmart was clearly picked through. Especially the super center food portion. Who would take the meat though? Even I would know better and I was far from a survivalist. Some food items remained on the floor, knocked over, trampled on. But the things we needed were in the back. The farther back we walked, the less things were touched.
“Grab some blankets,” Dodge said walking at a quick pace. “The good ones.”
He moved ahead, leaving me behind, while I followed his dictate in the blanket aisle, grabbing an arm full and placing them in my cart. I looked to see if there was anything else, then decided, Dodge probably thought of it already.
I found him in the auto section. The store was so dark, I had to rely on that huge spotlight he carried, which lit everything around him.
“Got blankets,” I announced.
He turned and placed items in the cart.
“This stuff is not fitting in the car,” I said.
“It’ll fit. And I thought of other places we could stop to look for survivors. I want to put it on the atlas when we get back to the house. All part of planning our route.”
“Like where?”
“Army bases.”
“Army bases?”
“Yeah and Greenbrier Mountain in West Virginia. The resort there has an old cold war bunker,” he said. “It’s a casino now, but people may be hunkering down.”
“I’m sure. And we’re gonna open the door to the bunker and let the flu right in.”
“Okay then maybe we should hit the CDC first.”
“The CDC?” I asked.
“Centers for Disease…”
“I know what it stands for, why?”
“They may be working on a cure.”
“So we go to Atlanta, go to the CDC which we probably won’t get into. Get the cure and drive all the way back up to West Virginia to deliver it to the people in the bunker.”
“Why do you have to be like that?” Dodge asked taking the cart from me and pushing it.
“I’m just repeating what you said so you can hear it.”
“You’re being sarcastic.”
“Realistic.”
“How about helpful?”
“I got the blankets didn’t I? And give me back the cart.” I took hold of the handle. “You shine the light. It’s spooky in here.”
“And I don’t mean about the blankets. I mean in general. Talk about this with me. Be a part of the plan. Have a little hope and try not to act like it’s a waste of time.”
“I’m sorry, Dodge. I am. I appreciate what you’re doing. My focus was only to get home. I didn’t think that far ahead.”
“So you didn’t know what you were gonna do after you got to your house?” he asked.
“Honestly. I was probably going to die.”
He stopped and faced me. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah, I am. I wanted to die before this whole mess happened. I tried, but I chickened out and messed up.”
“If you really wanted to kill yourself you would have. There’s no messing up putting a gun to your head. Wait. You hate guns.” He started walking again, leading the way. “You know, you had the focus to get home. Maybe you need a focus again.”
“We have the plan.”
“I’m thinking something to focus on. Something that you know needs you. Maybe a puppy.”
“A puppy?” I la
ughed. “The flu killed all dogs.”
“We don’t know that. We should hit a human society or pound just to check.”
“I think that’s a great idea. Set them free. But I don’t want a dog.”
“Not a dog person, ok,” Dodge said. “A cat.”
“I don’t want a cat.”
Dodge stopped walking. “What about a kid?”
“Oh, sure,” I scoffed. “I’ll just have a child in the post flu world.”
His voice dropped to a slow serious tone. “No, I’m not kidding. What about a kid.” Dodge stood there, his flashlight shining outward and even though dark, he looked stunned.
“Dodge?” I walked to him.
He faced a different direction, and when I approached Dodge, he didn’t move. He only shifted his glossed over eyes to mine then again he looked outward. Were they tears forming in his eyes? What made him instantaneously emotional?
My lips moved to ask a question, but a single step to Dodge and a glance into the beam of light took away my breath when I saw.
Perhaps slightly blinded by the spotlight, he locked a stare on us with a scared and shocked expression that matched ours. Huddled frightened on the floor at the end of aisle fourteen, against the shelf of action hero figures, eating from a bag of cheese goldfish was a little boy.
23. Found
He wanted to run. Had he not backed up into the shelf, scared out of his wits, the little boy would have taken off.
No older than four or five, the child was shaking. Empty juice boxes scattered around him, he omitted an odor that I had smelt before … on myself. He smelled exactly as I did.
“Son,” Dodge spoke softly.
His little eyes widened, he whimpered in what I guessed was fear and inched back.
“We aren’t gonna hurt you.” Dodge reached out his hand. “Come on. Let us help you.”
The boy didn’t move. I could see his little home there on the floor of the toy department. The Action Jackson Adventurer mask that illuminated must have been his light source.
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