Ping - From the Apocalypse

by Susan Lowry

  “And you have to realize also Kate — that by staying put, there is probably a better chance of being found; travelling all over the globe putting ourselves in danger of disease and who knows what else, isn’t rational.”

  She shoved an extra-large spoonful of cereal into her mouth. “But all that we’ve accumulated — such vast knowledge — it has to be passed down to someone.”

  Jack was pointing behind her. “Look – by your chair.”

  She turned to see a chipmunk sitting on his hind legs, begging. “Oh! I wish I had some nuts or something. See, there is hope. Come here Chippy.”

  She threw down a handful of cereal but it twitched its red and grey tail and scurried behind a tree. “Oh well, come back later then.”

  Jack’s hair was still dripping wet; a droplet fell onto his tanned shoulders and glistened as it trickled down his chest toward the towel he had draped over his lap.

  “At least the few animals that did survive will live more naturally — if they ever do manage to reproduce,” he said.

  “The poor thing must feel abandoned, just like we do,” Kate whispered. She was nearly in tears thinking about the boy and how she’d promised to take care of him — losing her sister and then mother as a vulnerable child had left her well acquainted with issues of abandonment.

  So much suffering could have been so easily avoided.

  A black cloud was forming inside her. The boy had lost everyone. He depended on her! Thinking about him was torturous. And she had done enough deserting in her lifetime. It wasn’t going to happen again, not this time, not ever. Not if she could help it.

  She fixed her eyes on Jack, determined to change his mind. “Even if we fail, at least we will have tried. At least we will know. I love it here with you. But I’m telling you Jack, I just can’t ignore this strong feeling that we are needed. Will you please come with me?”

  “Look Kate. What I want now, more than anything, is for you to be safe — I think you’re just a bit confused; you need to see that’s what’s important here. It’s a miracle that you’re alive. That we’re together. That’s too precious to throw away, now isn’t it?”

  He still didn’t get it. Her voice fell to a low-pitched murmur, “I'm sorry, I have to take a shot at it.”

  Pushing his bowl aside he leaned toward her and grasped her arm. “I don’t want you to go. We should settle in one place and stay put. There are diseases and all kinds of hazards. I’m a doctor, trust me I know.”

  “You won’t come with me then?”

  “No, I won’t. Because I’m going to talk you out of it. You can’t risk your life just because of a hunch. You’re smarter than that Kate.”

  “It isn’t just a hunch.”

  He sighed heavily and fell back in his chair. “What else could it be? At least give it a little more time then. Will you think it over? Spend a little while here with me. I care about you Kate.”

  “Then why, for Christ’s sake, are you going to let me go searching without you?”

  Jack rose from the table. He put on his shorts and jogged down to the beach. She saw him standing on the shore as she rinsed their bowls in a bin of water. Then she went inside and lay on the couch.

  Why couldn’t she contact the boy anymore, or Ping? Jack was right. Travelling had been hell, it had nearly killed her, and, now that there was someone around to actually talk to, the voices in her head were gone; it had all been an elaborate fantasy that her subconscious had devised to keep her alive.

  Jack was right that her life was an absolute miracle. She had survived an apocalyptic plague that had wiped out the world! And she was going to risk it now for what? A phone call that occurred months ago from a boy so ill he couldn’t even speak? Even that could have been a fantasy — though she thought not.

  But she would surely die out there alone, searching, clueless where to look — except for an area code which must include millions of homes. How could she possibly comb through so many dwellings? The child had, in all likelihood, died long ago. Everything else that she heard in her mind was pure wishful thinking.

  She wasn’t asleep, but her eyes were closed when Jack returned to the beach house and stood over her for a moment before he spoke.

  “So why not the two of us start a family?” he said.

  She gazed up at him, “What?”

  “I think we should try. We can’t let thousands of years of evolution be lost forever when we have the ability to do something about it. Maybe there are more survivors out there Kate… but isn’t that all the more reason to get started while we can? If anyone else is out there, let them find us. But right now, we need to concentrate on reproducing the human race.”

  “Oh Jack.”

  She was speechless. How could she make a decision like that, when everything was so terribly unclear? She had planned to have a family with Jon. It was what they had wanted more than anything.

  And yet they had waited — while she was certain that she possessed an innate instinct for mothering, there were some deep issues regarding her past that needed sorting out. They were major fears actually, and self-doubts… that had held her back.

  But with Jon’s encouragement, she had been planning on working on it more, maybe even trying some counselling. After the trauma of her childhood, it only made sense.

  And now this? She couldn’t possibly wrap her head around it. To top it off, Jack was so mysterious and dark — there was something about him that she didn’t trust.

  “There’s a side to you that scares me. I can see it brooding behind your eyes Jack, but I don't understand because you refuse to share a thing about yourself. Can’t you please tell me what it is?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s just history. Over and done with. A train-wreck of things I prefer to forget about. Can you understand that? But if you really need to know give me some more time. We don’t have to rush into anything right away.”

  She sat up. Jack perched beside her on the edge of the couch and took her hands in his.

  “Let's take a few weeks to get to know each other better, okay? See what happens. Whoever is out there can wait a little longer for us. If they've survived this long on their own.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Desperate to be Rescued

  (June 10th, Year One, PA)

  Kate propped herself up on her elbow in bed and gazed down at his sleepy face. “You know Jack, I have a feeling you were out there watching me that day. I was lying on my towel and I felt your eyes on me — don’t you deny it.”

  Jack laughed, but did not open his eyes. “I swear. I was not watching you.”

  “I’m a very intuitive person,” she continued. “I prove it to myself all the time, and yet, I convince myself it can’t be true; so I don’t listen to my own instincts anyway.”

  “We all have gut instincts. We should learn to trust them,” he said, raising his dark eyebrows.

  “So you’re confessing you were spying on me then.” She chuckled and lay back on his chest, quiet for a moment.

  She finally sighed. “Did you ever have a feeling that you could get inside someone’s head who you have never even met before?”

  “Not exactly,” he mumbled.

  “How on earth did you find me then? You have to admit, it is kind of a far-fetched coincidence; I mean after travelling from such a distance. You could have gone in any direction but you came here. It would have been far easier to have missed me.”

  He opened his eyes and stared at the window. “Wonder how many are out there?” he muttered.

  “Do you really think it was just a twist of fate? Could it be possible that your subconscious knew and led you here? I know you are going to think I’m crazy, but I sensed you were on the way. I sensed a tall, dark, and handsome man,” she giggled.

  “I really did! It was so vague I didn’t admit it to myself, but I wasn’t actually surprised at your arrival. Shocked as hell, yes! But not surprised.”

  “Sounds like you’re rationalizing.”
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br />   “I know there are survivors out there Jack, because I can feel them. I wish you believed me.” She peered at him optimistically, his long hair ruffled over his face and pillow.

  “In what way do you feel them?” he said, glancing up at her with slightly widening eyes.

  She took a deep breath and blew it out. “I haven’t mentioned this before, but when I was convalescing back at home, a boy called me on my cellphone. It was the very last call I had. He didn’t speak, because… he was just too damned ill, I think. But he communicated with me by tapping on the phone and answering my questions. Then we lost contact. But later, he came to me in my dreams. And then after that, while I was awake — in my mind. He wants me to come and get him. He is only seven years old!”

  His expression didn’t change — except, maybe she detected more sadness than before. No, it was actually pity.

  “What on earth are you looking at me like that for? I’m not crazy!”

  “No… I believe you. But you realize it was just your imagination darling. That’s what happens when people are put under such extreme stress. It’s nothing to be worried about. Over time you will see.”

  But Jack was wrong. She spoke to both Ping and the boy that very night. And she made up her mind right then and there — never to doubt her instincts again.

  She would have thought that after surviving the apocalypse, nothing would feel difficult or complicated again. But it appeared that her life couldn’t have become more complex. She really did want to start a family with Jack, finally admitting to herself that she was in love — though she still missed Jon so much the pain was often unbearable and she felt dreadfully guilty about being with Jack.

  But all of their plans had taken place in a world that she would never see again. It was terribly soon to begin a new relationship, she knew that; yet the cards laid out for her now were an entirely different kind of deck. What was normal back then was no longer relevant. After everything she had gone through Kate needed intimacy and love. Jon would understand that. She realized a part of her had died, and what was left had been slowly fading away, and that Jack’s arrival had probably saved her.

  Her life was not going to be the way she had pictured it, not within any stretch of her imagination, but she believed that having a child was the right thing to do — for humanity and for her own survival. It would help her forget the horrible past and move forward into a life that she hoped would become as close to normal as possible.

  They were going to try to save mankind and restore some of civilization; eventually they would find other survivors and their children would not be alone. Both Ping and the boy agreed.

  Ping could take months to show up and it might be even longer before they had the ability to locate the boy, who had made it clear that developing the skills of telepathy — which had been natural for him even before he could speak — was a time-consuming process for people like Kate.

  Waiting for Ping was a good strategy. Her arrival would convince Jack that she was not having hallucinations after all. Then he would have to agree to join their search. In the meantime, Kate wanted to conceive a child; that kind of optimistic planning helped make the pain of the past a little easier.

  She wished it were simpler than that, but then her situation had rarely been easy — from the day she turned three years old until years afterwards, Kate’s life had been extraordinarily difficult.

  The first three years shared with Sarah, her twin sister, were joyful and innocent, the two of them always together, side by side. But then her life changed, when on the morning of their birthday they’d been instructed to remain inside the car for a few minutes while their mother popped into a store.

  Sarah soon became squirmy. She had always been the one to get bored first. And when she decided to get out of the car, Kate had screamed at her not to go. But Sarah was stubborn and instead of refusing to allow her to leave, all Kate did was follow her, hoping she could keep her from getting into trouble. Even back then she’d ignored her instincts.

  They had walked through a maze of parked vehicles because Sarah wanted to find the bubble-gum machine. They’d remembered that it was outside the pharmacy the last time they had been there.

  “But we don’t have any money,” Kate had said.

  Sarah had picked up a piece of cardboard from the sidewalk and tried stuffing it in the slot as if it was a coin.

  “I'll do it Sarah. That's too big.” Kate had removed the pretend money and was trying to tear it smaller and rounder like a loonie, which took all of her concentration.

  She was struggling to force it in, hoping that just a bit further and the gum would come rolling out of the shoot.

  “Sarah, this isn’t working,” she was saying. “Sarah!” But when she finally looked around her sister was gone.

  She couldn't remember what store her mother had said she was going to be in. Sweat had beaded up along her upper lip and across her forehead as she’d scanned the long strip-mall. She stared through the windows and pressed her face against the glass trying to spot either Sarah or her mom.

  Finally she recognized the sewing machines on display, remembering that they had gone in a store like that recently. She had squeezed past a large woman who was leaving. Strangers lingered in the aisles not paying any attention to her and for the first time in her life she’d begun to tremble. She was lost and to top it off, so was Sarah.

  Had she known at that moment that Sarah would no longer be a part of her life, she would have crawled beneath the shelf and refused to come out. But instead she went to the woman behind the counter. It seemed to take an eternity before her mother arrived in a panic accompanied by a police woman.

  Kate felt sick just thinking about it, even now. Her mother had never been the same after that — nothing was, for that matter. Kate remembered not being able to do enough to make it up to her mother. The two of them became like ships drifting far apart on a choppy sea.

  At Sarah’s memorial, when Kate had attempted to explain that her twin wasn't in heaven yet, they’d looked at her sadly, her mother weeping continually and then they’d told her to keep quiet.

  But she was able to have tea with her sister long after that — though nobody else could see Sarah in the chair beside Kate at their little table. Her mother had become horribly upset with this scenario and so Kate had told a white-lie and said that she was only talking to her imaginary friend.

  Sometimes, when Jack’s eyes were less guarded, they made Kate want to cry. And often, when he caught her smiling, or even laughing at him, he looked surprised and vulnerable.

  Making love almost every afternoon — sometimes again before bed, was wonderful. They played in the waves and ran along the shore, talking about the kind of future they were going to create. She felt her health slowly beginning to return.

  Their prospects were all very encouraging. There would be plenty of food for the first few years. Even if they didn’t grow a thing — of course, they planned to start a vegetable garden soon — there were dried and canned goods that would tie them over. For extra nutrients, they immediately began to sprout dried beans and grains.

  Soon they would locate a suitable place to settle, near a clean, spring-fed lake with adjacent farmland, stock up on seeds and learn to operate farm equipment. Kate made a long list of the vegetables they could grow: wheat, corn, quinoa, millet, hemp, potatoes, flax, sunflowers, soybean, lentils, chickpeas, green peas, black beans, carrots, peppers, tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, green beans, pumpkin, and squash. Then there were the fruits: apples, pears, melons, and berries.

  “I never imagined myself as a farmer,” she whispered, cuddled in his arms on the beach one morning. “But all those fresh foods sound so good right now. We need to go berry picking again. I have a craving for pie.”

  Jack raised his brows at the idea, and then he sighed. “We have a good future ahead of us, and easier than you might think. Whatever piece of farming equipment we desire is there for us; even manufacturing, it’s all set up;
we just have to get it running again. The hard part is done,” Jack assured her.

  “What about warm, running water and flush toilets?”

  “All that too.”

  It began to feel like an extended vacation and then a honeymoon. Even her secret times with the boy and Ping came with less effort. The clarity was improving too.

  But the child needed her — he no longer hid that fact. Kate could tell he was getting desperate to be found. With his fear and loneliness so obviously worse and his physical state beginning to decline again, Kate worked constantly to improve her telepathic skills, with a terrible feeling that his time was running out.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Good, the Bad, and the Impossible

  (July 15th, Year One, PA)

  Kate decided not to wake Jack, who’d fallen asleep in the living room chair, reading. She wanted a refreshing evening walk and dug her toes into the cool sand, strolling toward the shore. Then swishing into the water until only ankle deep she waded all the way to one of her favourite spots.

  It was a boulder on which she could relax quietly and meditate, about half the size of a small car. It would have been completely under water during high-tide but now it was resting on the wet sand.

  Lingering several yards out from it, allowing the ocean to lap gently against her calves, she admired the pink and orange clouds off to the west. Who would have thought it possible after everything that had come about to be happy? Yet, she was. Deeply immersed in her thoughts of Jack and the opportunities that lay ahead of them, she felt unexpectedly joyful, even to be admiring such a view.

  There was now a radiant ball of fire below the clouds, half of it reflection; a path of gold shimmered all the way across the cascading waves. The sound of her name from behind her brought her abruptly back to alertness.

  “Katie, is that really you?”

  She turned to view an image that would stay in her memory forever. There, bathed in the warm honey-glow was a tall figure standing near the boulder. Kate’s breath caught in her throat as she gazed ahead of her in astonished disbelief.