Pretty soon my roaming fingers had painted a colorful tapestry all along my stomach and ribs, between my thighs, and all along my legs, arms, and back. I'm pretty sure my face looked like I was ready for battle; like a Cherokee warrior. The last of the Mohicans. Rarr!!
Yeah, I'm not very intimidating. Content I had no bugs on me and no burns, I stood there in complete naked vulnerability. The moon had peaked its head momentarily through the dense clouds and cast an opaque shimmer through the windows of the shop and onto my body. My sweat glistened for several seconds before the dark clouds reclaimed the sky. I kneeled down and picked up the cause of the wild flame. The candle's wax had oozed onto the floor and had nearly burned all the way through the wick.
‘You're a dangerous little fella, aren't you?’
And that's why we don't fall asleep with a fire going, kids. Fire 101: No active flames before bed. I tossed the candle in the air and caught it firmly. I stood and placed it back on the counter. I gathered up my garments and surveyed the damage. They were completely ruined. My hands fell to my sides and I let out a sigh. My shoulders were heavy as I thought about what to do. I grabbed my pants, they were mostly okay. I slid my slender legs through and did a few tiny hops to squeeze the pants up around my waist.
‘What are you doing?’ a man's voice asked.
I yelped and fell backwards against the wall. My arms instinctively went across my chest to cover up my lady parts.
‘Who's there?’ I asked. ‘Show yourself!’
I saw movement to my left as he came out of the shadows near the back of the shop. How long had he been standing there? Watching me. I shivered from the thought. The man limped forward a few steps, dragging one of his legs behind him.
‘How long were you standing there?’ I demanded.
‘Not long,’ he said.
‘Who are you?’
Something in his voice sounded familiar, but I couldn't quite catch it. It sounded like something was blocking his mouth when he spoke.
‘Here, put this on.’ A tunic landed against my body and fell to the ground. His face turned away as I kneeled down and quickly draped it over my shoulders.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
He hobbled a little closer, but I still couldn't make out his features.
I held my arms across my chest starring at him. My eyes shifted to the metal bar in a tub behind the counter, then back at him.
‘You won't need that,’ he said.
‘How can you be so sure?’ I slid closer to the weapon in case this mystery man decided to charge me.
‘Because I'm not here to hurt you.’ He held his arms out to the sides. ‘See, I have nothing on me.’
‘Why are you here? What do you want then?’ My fingers touched the edge of the cool metal and wrapped around in a loose squeeze. Immediately I was filled with confidence and felt safe again.
‘Your godfather sent me,’ he said.
Good thing I wasn't holding the crowbar. I would have dropped it.
‘Is he okay? Where is he? Why didn't he come back himself?’
The man held up his arms again.
‘Slow down. He's fine,’ he urged.
‘If he's fine, then why didn't he come himself?’ My fingers tightened around the metal again and slid it up ever so slightly.
The mystery man took a few steps forward and leaned against the counter. He let out a gasp of pain.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked. ‘Are you hurt?’ I didn't budge, holding my ground. For all I knew, he was faking it in an attempt to weaken my walls and lure me closer to him. Well, sorry, buddy! You're not getting any free sympathy from me. Not until you tell me who you are, and where my uncle is.
I'm really not this apathetic usually. I promise. The past few days have been kind of rough on me, worse than usual. I saw his chest heaving up and down sporadically. Every time he inhaled there was this wheezing sound, like air being squeezed through a tight hole, or like when the children before the solar flares would run around in the playground blowing on grass strands they had in between their thumbs to make a whistling sound. Something was definitely not right about this guy though. He was sick.
‘I'm fine,’ he said, and held his hand to his mouth as he let out a lung-wrenching coughing episode.
‘Are you sure?’ I said. ‘That cough doesn't sound too good to me.’
He held up his finger to me, and cleared his throat one last time.
‘I apologize. Ever since the ash, my lungs have never quite been the same.’
Roxx had one or two stools in the shop and the man slid one over and lifted himself into it. He let out another deep sigh; this time measurably more calm.
‘And this damned weather isn't helping.’
‘Where did you say you were from again?’ I asked.
His dark eyes looked at me. I still couldn't make out his features, but I could see that he had a few months' worth of growth on his chin. And his silver hair was drawn back behind his ears.
‘I'm not really from anywhere in particular,’ he said. ‘I'm what you might call a rover.’
‘A rover?’
‘Come and go. I don't fancy staying in one place for too long. Makes me nervous.’
‘From where are you roving this time?’ I asked. My elbows were propped on the counter.
‘I came from the city.’
‘Which city? There aren't many of those left these days.’
‘Trenton.’
‘Trenton the capital?’ I asked.
‘Well, what's left of it any way; nothing but a pile of crippled rubble now. I was making my way south from Pennsylvania when I took a minor detour on I-195.’
‘Was anyone alive in the city? The last I heard, everyone had scattered into the countryside into small towns along any water source they could find.’
‘You'd be right, about the scattering part at least. Unfortunately or fortunately, however you want to look at it, I did not come in contact with any living souls for three days while I rummaged through the fallout for anything of use. A few stray dogs, a half-eaten deer that had been smashed by a fallen statue, and rodents.’
He picked something out of his tooth and flicked it on his sleeve.
‘At least I didn't go hungry,’ he said. ‘Rat's not too bad once you get past the rubbery parts and the taste of sewer.’
He spun the satchel he had over his shoulder and rummaged through it.
‘Just about all I could find that I could use were these.’
He pulled out a grappling hook looped to a rope, a can of spam, and a pair of boots without the laces.
‘Not my size, but I figured they might come in handy if I ever came into contact with civilization.’
He looked to me as if examining me.
‘What's your size?’ he asked.
‘My size?’
‘Boot.’
He nodded his chin down towards my feet hidden behind the counter wall.
‘Oh! I wear a six and a half.’
‘I guess these won't work then unless you can make do with men's eights?’
‘My feet would slide right out of those. Thanks, though.’
He shrugged his shoulders and placed the boots back into the satchel, along with the hooks and rope. He held the spam in his hands and hesitated for a few seconds as if he was contemplating a taste, then tossed it too into the sac. I heard it clatter as it landed on something hard.
‘You said you knew my godfather?’ I asked.
He tightened the string into a knot around the opening of the satchel then laid it on the ground next to him and looked up at me.
‘I knew him, yes,’ he said.
‘Knew?’ I asked. My heart lurched in my ribcage. ‘Is he okay?’
‘He's alive, if that's what you're wondering,’ he said.
Well, duh! But where is he?
He seemed to hear my thoughts.
‘He's contained to say the least,’ he said. ‘The last I saw he was running in the opposite direction of
me and climbing over the fence. We were supposed to meet up that night at a rendezvous point, but he never showed. I waited two days before coming here.’
‘You left him!’ I shouted. ‘I thought you were his friend. Why would you leave him?’
His face was stone cold as he stared at me. He took another labored breath before continuing. I was pacing behind the counter, my palm firmly pressed against my forehead. I was mumbling to myself.
‘Willow,’ the man said.
I didn't hear him and kept playing with my fears in my head.
What does he mean he's contained? Did he fall in a hole? Another tunnel like the one he showed me? With the drought there are bound to be underground caverns that became exposed as the ground shifted. Maybe he's trapped. Maybe he's injured!
My frantic eyes looked up and I was about to say ‘we need to find him!’ when the mystery man leaned closer and the features of his face were finally revealed. Something about his crystal eyes made me bite my tongue.
‘Willow, he is fine. I have a feeling I know where they're holding him. And I'm going to figure out a way to get him out. I promise.’
‘You said they. Who are they?’ I asked.
‘The Bios,’ he said.
‘The what?’
‘The grey-suited soldiers.’
‘You mean the Pavers?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, I guess. I don't know what they're called. I've always known them as the Bios. It's not natural for someone to have a machine surgically attached to them that has access to their thoughts and actions. Science has gone too far in playing God this time. Look at where it's gotten us.’ He waved his hand across the ceiling indicating our current situation, then shifted on the stool and coughed a few times into his clenched fist. ‘Besides, anyone who has some apparatus permanently adhered to their spine is asking for trouble.’
‘You're saying the Pavers have him?’ I probed. ‘The Bios, I mean.’
‘Yeah. Well, I assume they do. We were inside the walls when the alarms went off. We decided to split up to avoid being caught. Looks like I was the only one who got away.’
‘What were you doing? Where were you?’ I asked. My brow furrowed into tiny lines. ‘He was supposed to be checking out the explosions...’
‘I can't speak for what he was doing before I ran into him just south of Siloam, but he was in a hurry.’
‘Which direction was he heading?’ I asked.
‘East,’ he said. ‘Something about needing to warn the others in Howell. I assume that meant you.’
‘Warn us about what?’ I asked.
‘Considering just a day or so after I met him on the road we had the Bios on our tail, I'd say it was something to do with them. But, I'm not sure. He never told me. He just said he needed to warn the others. I asked if I could join him to Howell as I had a niece I was making my way to myself. “The more the merrier,” he had said. Your godfather seemed like a good man. I got to know him over the next several days before we were separated.’
‘How do you know so much?’ I backed away instinctively. ‘How do I know what you're saying is true? How do I know I can trust you?’
His lips parted to say something then he thought better of it. Instead, he reached inside his shirt and pulled out a folded piece of parchment.
‘You may not believe my words, but maybe you'll believe this.’
He slid the folded piece of paper across the counter. Its frayed edge brushed up against my fingers and I peered down at it as if it was a foreign contaminate. I'm not sure what I was expecting to find, nor why I was afraid of what the parchment would reveal. It was not what I had expected.
I untied the brown yarn and unrolled the parchment. It turned out not to be paper at all, but a map. Yet, it wasn't a map I had ever seen. It had the general shape of the United States, but at the same time, it wasn’t the map of America that I knew.
I began to verbalize my question when he cut me off.
‘It's North America. What's left of it anyway,’ he said. ‘I've been traveling for many years, never wanting to settle for more than a few days in any given area.’ I heard his voice crack. I saw his hands fiddle with his palms as he continued.
Hmm. What has him fearful of staying in one place for too long?
‘That's everything East of Georgia.’ His thumb pressed on the right half of the parchment.
‘What's this?’ I pointed to a blue dot in the top right corner.
‘Toronto. Most of Canada is under water ever since the glaciers melted. Most of the remaining survivors have migrated to here.’ His finger pointed just to the left of the blue dot.
‘Camp Grayling,’ he said.
‘What's there?’
‘It's an old National Guard base that the old government converted into a FEMA camp just before the nukes. The base was transformed into a detention facility with fifty-foot guard towers and fences lined with razor wire. Not a friendly place.’
‘Have you been?’
‘For a moment, before I got away.’
‘Got away? I thought FEMA camps were refuge for people.’
‘That's what they want you to believe. There is nothing refuged about it. It's overpopulated; they herd you in long lines like cattle into these bunkers that they claim can hold five hundred thousand people, but they don't. You're basically lying on top of each other. Once you're in you pretty much are there for good.’
‘Can't you leave whenever you want?’ I asked.
‘Don't be naive. Nothing is as simple and straightforward as that with the government, especially not one that's being run by eight different nations who used to be at arms with one another. Believe me, if you can help it, stay away.’
‘How did you manage to get out?’
His eyes narrowed and he looked over his shoulder toward the front door of the shop. One of the billboards had fallen off of its hinges and was slapping against one of the columns. I saw his hand slide something back into the loop of his belt and drape his shirt over it. A blade? A gun?
‘I was lucky,’ he said, ‘and I had help.’
He stroked his beard between his thumb and forefinger.
‘It's taken me five years to outline all of that, but I know there's much more I haven't seen.’
‘It's impressive,’ I admitted. He had single-handedly mapped out the new world with acute detail. He had even marked reservoirs, lakes, streams, dams, camps, precincts, and elevation with their own scale and marking.
‘This is very detailed,’ I said. I started to roll the map back up when something slipped out of one of the unmarked rolls. My fingers lifted the image. It was a picture of a family. My family.
I looked up at him.
‘Where did you get this?’
For the first time, I saw him smile.
‘It's been a while,’ he said.
My mouth was hanging open. I recognized my father and my mother immediately. My father had both of his eyes. As long as I could remember he had always worn a patch over his right eye. And my mother; her dark auburn hair stretched all the way to the bottom of her back. She had it in a waterfall braid. She was beautiful! There was another gentleman standing behind both of them with his arms clasped over their shoulders. They were all smiling and looked happy.
I felt the tears welling up in my eyes.
I tried to speak, but couldn't find the words. The picture was shaking in my trembling fingers. A tear splashed onto my father's chest and I brushed it aside with my thumb. I noticed he was holding in his hands. I brought the picture closer to my eyes and tried to see what it was through my blurred vision. Was that a baby? Me?
‘That's you in the picture,’ he said, answering my curious inspection. ‘And your parents...’ He paused. I felt his hand on mine.
‘We were young then. Your parents still thought they could change the world. Even this world.’ He did little to hide his skepticism. ‘I tried to convince them to come with me, but they refused. They believed there was still good to be had here. I left the
m a week after that picture was taken. I thought I was courageous for leaving, for traveling to try and save my own skin, and maybe a few others in the process. But your parents chose to stay. They are the ones who built this place. Your father dug the first well and your mother established the trading depot system. They were both brilliant, destined for great things.’
He paused, looking down at his own hands. He spun his thumbs over each other in a circular loop.
‘They were the true heroes. Not me, not the new government, or these bio-genetically altered super-beings that control the new system. Your parents were the brave ones. The world is a darker place without them.’
I looked up and embraced his light eyes. I found myself running around the counter and falling into his arms. I pressed my face deep into his chest. I could feel his prickly beard scrape up along my cheek, but I didn't care.
‘You were young in that picture,’ he was saying as I crashed into his arms. ‘You probably don't remember me.’
My lips shook as I tried to formulate my words.
‘You're my...’
‘Yes,’ he said. He stroked my hair with his hand. ‘I'm your Uncle Parker. Your mother was my kid sister.’
I didn't much care who he was. He was family. I found my emotions spinning in a whirlwind as memories of my parents flashed through my mind. I don't know how long I held him, sobbing in his arms, but he never let go.
Maybe there was still hope in this world even if it meant crying in a stranger's arms.
I was unable to prepare myself for what came next.
≈ Chapter 17 ≈
Drool is the substance of love.
When I finally pried my face from Parker's burly chest, a puddle of wet tears and drool remained.
‘Sorry,’ I said, too happy to care.
He smiled and stroked a stray strand of hair behind my ear.
‘You look just like your mother did when she was about your age.’
I could see his grey eyes watering and his bottom lip quiver, but he bit back the urge to release his own tears. He grabbed my hands and held them in his.
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