Dust and Kisses

by Smith, Dean Wesley

“Wait!” he shouted at the screen. “I’m right here. “Don’t go!

  He wanted to watch her some more.

  He wanted to meet her.

  He wanted to talk to her.

  It took only a moment before she was off the overpass and headed down the freeway toward town and out of that camera’s range.

  The moment she disappeared, he felt a jolt of panic go through him. “Oh, damn.”

  His hands scrambled over the massive control board he had set up for the security cameras. Finally, he managed to activate the next camera covering a section of the old Interstate 5 south of town.

  For a long moment, he thought he had lost her. Then she came around a large pile-up of wrecked cars and kept walking, right at him, as again the motion alarm for that camera started to ring.

  She was too good to be true.

  An impossible dream.

  Small, strong, confident, and good looking. Something had to be wrong with her.

  He flipped off the alarm, sitting back in silence as he watched her stride toward him. She had the walk of someone in control, of someone not afraid of where she was heading. She was a survivor who looked like she lived alone.

  This could not be happening.

  Almost all of the human population of the planet seemed to be dead, yet here was a woman walking right into his life.

  Or maybe through his life.

  That thought scared him again. He couldn’t just let this dream walk by. He had to do something.

  But what? He had no idea where she was headed, what her experiences were over the last few years, if she even wanted to talk to anyone else.

  And just like all the women he was attracted to back in his college days, he had no idea how to meet her.

  The rifle she carried with ease seemed to grow bigger with every second. The way she handled it, and by the way she had a pistol tucked into her belt, she knew how to shoot.

  She might just kill anything that came close to her and wonder why later.

  He had no idea how to approach her.

  At least back in college, trying to meet a girl didn’t mean risking getting shot.

  But as he stared at this woman’s face as she got closer to his camera, he had no doubt that getting shot was a risk he was going to have to take.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CAREY KEPT HER PACE SLOW and easy in the hot sun as she headed down the freeway, moving in and around wrecked cars. In every car the driver was still strapped behind the wheel, smiling skeleton-smiles at her. Human skeletons were just so much a part of the landscape; she had stopped noticing them a couple years ago. With skeletons and human bones being everywhere, they seemed unreal, almost plastic and sometimes comical, like bad special effects of an old movie, even though she knew deep down inside that every one of them had been a real person, with a real life.

  Now, the worry she felt about going back into the city today had her noticing everything, and looking at everything with a cold eye of reality, including all the bodies.

  “This ain’t no movie, Carey. Stay alert.”

  He voice echoed off the hot concrete and then was taken by the warm wind. She stared ahead at the big overpass and the signs directing traffic to either the downtown area, or along the bridge and beyond to Seattle.

  Seattle.

  Wow, that seemed so far away to her. Maybe if there was no community of people here that she could meet, she could take a look in Seattle some day.

  Maybe.

  “And cows fly.”

  Her voice again echoed on the hot pavement. Seattle was too far away, too much to think about right now. She needed to focus on the city in front of her.

  Portland seemed so familiar, yet so alien, especially walking along the freeway to get into town. She had driven this road a thousand times, but never walked it. No one ever walked along a freeway when the world was still pumping. Not and live very long anyway.

  While walking, she noticed things she would never have time to see at sixty miles per hour. Pavement colors, buildings, the way signs were secured to the ground. All kinds of strange and useless things. And even though she didn’t have to, she found herself staying to the road’s edge more than she needed to, just out of respect for old habits.

  On the day she had left three years ago, the city still had a sound of a few car motors running, of stoplights clicking as they changed, of power humming through the buildings and overhead lines.

  Today, the city had no sound. Only the wind rustling the weeds and the birds chirping broke the silence. Cities were supposed to have sounds. Honking horns, construction noises, and police sirens. Not even in the middle of the night was a city ever really silent.

  This city was deathly silent.

  “This is creepy.”

  She could just turn around go home right now. What difference would it make?

  She kept walking. Her mother’s voice echoed in her head. Such a brave little girl.

  Sometimes she wished she could get her mother to just shut up.

  Carey moved under the freeway sign leading her toward the downtown and riverfront areas. She had better start figuring out exactly where she was heading, at least make the decision as to where she would spend the night. It would take some time to get a place comfortable enough to stay in.

  Why hadn’t she made that decision, had a plan, before now? Had she figured she would never get this far? Most of the time, her way of dealing with something stressful had been to just not think about it. Clearly, staying somewhere in the city had been one of those things.

  She left the freeway and moved down onto Front Street, walking in the middle of the street instead of getting anywhere near the sidewalks. The sidewalks felt too close to the buildings to be safe at the moment.

  Ahead of her, a dozen blocks or so, the Marriott Hotel tower rose over the river. She could stay there, in one of the unoccupied suites with a view of Mt. Hood and the river. When living here, she had never had a reason, or enough money, to stay in such a nice place. It would be a treat.

  “A reward for finishing a long walk.”

  Her words echoed off a large pile-up of cars and the concrete of the overpass behind her.

  She nodded to herself; glad she now had a plan. She would find a good room there, set it up as a base for exploring around the city. She would stock it with food; maybe even get a portable generator in for electricity. But before anything, she would have to check the water, to make sure the water tanks of a place like that had enough good water to last her for a time. In so many buildings, the water supply had been completely drained. Water would make her final decision for her when she got there. After a day in this hot sun, she was going to need a shower. Maybe two.

  With a little work, she could even make whatever place she found permanent.

  “Duh, why not?” It hadn’t occurred to her until just that moment that she could have a place in the city, a place on the coast, a place just about anywhere in the world she wanted.

  Nothing was stopping her.

  No one was stopping her.

  All she would have to do is figure out a way to move her cats from one home to the next with her.

  She moved along Front Street. A dozen more blocks and she would be at the hotel. The grass along the river to her right had turned to weeds; the sidewalks and streets were cracked and growing grass in places. Still, the city had a beauty about it, with the blue river flowing through it, the mountains around it, and the green trees everywhere.

  The air smelled faintly of water and fish, and birds chirped and flitted from nests in the branches of the trees along the old riverside park. She could see where birds had stained the edges of buildings and built nests in windows. It was lucky she had come into town on such a beautiful day. Even if this trip was a waste of time, it was at least replacing the images of her last days here with something more pleasant.

  Two blocks short of the hotel, something moved out of the corner of her eye. She snapped around, the rifle up and aimed, her blood raci
ng. The feeling of being watched had suddenly returned stronger than ever.

  A bird flittered away.

  She sighed and lowered the gun.

  “All right,” she said out loud, letting her voice slow her racing heart, “Calm down and don’t go shooting everything that moves.”

  “I’m very glad to hear you say that,” a deep, rich voice said to her left.

  She spun around, the rifle up again.

  Every nerve, every ounce of focus was on the rifle and her finger and where she was aiming it.

  She found herself face-to-face with a man about her age, with brown, unruly short hair, twinkling brown eyes, and a large smile. He had his hands in the air like he had just been caught robbing a bank.

  She tried to take a breath and failed as she stared at him.

  He had moved out of the shadows near an office building and now was standing no more than fifteen steps from her. He wore a plain white tee shirt, jeans and new-looking tennis shoes. He had the appearance of having dressed quickly, yet still seemed together and clean.

  Very clean.

  Tanned.

  Healthy.

  She bet he even smelled good.

  And he was one of the best-looking men she had ever seen, even before everyone died.

  It was as if time in the dead city around them froze.

  Nothing on the street moved.

  The river sounds seemed to drop back to silence.

  She didn’t even feel the heat, couldn’t hear the birds.

  She kept her gaze locked on his, the rifle pointed at his chest. She had hoped to find someone else alive and sane, but she had never expected to.

  And she had never expected to find someone so good-looking.

  She just hoped she wouldn’t have to shoot him.

  The seconds seemed to go on forever as she drank in this man, memorizing every detail.

  “I’m not going to bite,” the guy said, smiling. His voice was deep and rich and matched his rugged face.

  She was surprised his voice stayed level and didn’t shake, even though she could tell he was worried about her putting a hole in his chest. She doubted anything intelligent at all could come out of her mouth at the moment.

  He laughed. “Sorry for the cliche. I didn’t know what else to say. As you can see, I am unarmed and alone.”

  Then he shrugged.

  She didn’t lower her gun, and he didn’t lower his arms.

  She had to get her wits about her, really find out who this person was, and what she had just walked into.

  Was this a trap? Was he the bait to get her guard down so others could overwhelm her?

  They stared at each other for a few long seconds, then she decided to try to speak. She swallowed and then managed to get the words out.

  “How did you know I was here?”

  She was proud that she had made the question sound authoritative, and that not a word broke.

  “Security cameras,” he said, pointing up at the top of a pole back down Front Street. “I have them on all the main entrances into town. A person living alone in the big city can never be too careful.”

  He smiled at her, and then went on. “But to be honest, I was also hoping to find someone else alive, passing through.”

  “And you sit all day and watch your cameras?” she asked, now even more worried that she had run into another weirdo. Why hadn’t she listened to her little voice when she felt she was being watched? She should have just turned around, found another way into the city. Mistakes like that could get her killed.

  He laughed. “Hardly. In fact, you woke me when you stopped on the overpass. I have motion detector alarms with each camera.”

  She could feel herself starting to relax just a little, and her little voice wasn’t screaming that this man was dangerous like some of the others she had seen alive. She would have set up security cameras like he described if she had thought of it, or known how. Especially living in a big city area where a lot of people would naturally go through.

  She kept her rifle aimed at him and forced herself to think, slowly, giving herself time to calm down.

  One mistake, one slip, and she could find herself in a very bad situation. He was shorter than Paine had been, but still clearly very strong. She had to be careful, no matter how much she wanted to lower her gun and hug this stranger and talk to him.

  “So, where do you live?” she asked.

  “Baxter building,” he said, indicating with one raised hand the direction of the main part of town. “Been there for two years, in the penthouse. How about you?”

  “I’ve been on the coast,” she said, feeling that even that small amount of information was too much. At least she hadn’t told him which part of the coast.

  He nodded, as if understanding that. “Yeah, I was up in the Cascades, in the forest, until the smell cleared.”

  “Are you alone?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  She was thrilled, for some reason, at that news, but at the same time, it made her even more worried about him. She was going to have to put aside her attraction for this man, and her desire to talk to him, and think clearly.

  Hard to do. He was so fantastically good-looking. And those eyes of his just begged to be stared into.

  “How did you survive?” she asked.

  “I was doing the security system in a bank in Beaverton when all this happened. I was down in the vault, but I have no idea why that protected me. Or even what happened to everyone.”

  “I do,” she said.

  At that his eyes lit up, and his arms lowered a little. “You do? Why? How? I mean, if you know that, if you would tell me what happened to everyone, it would help me figure out where there are more people alive.”

  She took her first deep breath since she had been surprised by this hunk of a man, and ignored his question for a moment. Clearly, if he had been watching her, he had known she had a rifle, had known she would get the drop on him, and had risked being shot by introducing himself.

  Either the guy had courage, and really wanted her to trust him.

  Or he was stupid beyond words.

  Or he was working some other trick on her, and had friends helping him trap her.

  She glanced around.

  Her back was to the riverbank. There was no way anyone could come up behind her where they were standing.

  “I’m alone, honest,” he said, noticing her movement. Again he shrugged. “I wish I wasn’t, to be honest with you. But not many people around here left to talk to these days.”

  “No groups?”

  “None,” he said. “A few couples living out on the outskirts of town, but they’re not friendly. And the last guy to go through town that I saw was talking to himself, dragging a kid’s wagon, and carrying machine guns. I didn’t talk to him.”

  “So in all of this main part of the city, you’re it?”

  He spread his arms wider over his head and smiled. “I’m the entire population of downtown Portland, Oregon. And considering my cameras and security system, I would know if anyone else was around.”

  She said nothing to that, wondering how much she could trust this guy who was clearly trying to show her he could be trusted. Even back when everyone was still alive, she didn’t trust too many people, so trust would take a while with this guy. At least she didn’t have to keep her gun trained on the only person she had talked to in three years.

  She motioned that he should lower his arms, and she lowered the rifle, keeping her finger beside the trigger and the rifle ready to bring back up quickly.

  “Thanks,” he said. He moved his shoulders around a few times. “I clearly need more reps on those hand-raising isometrics.”

  She smiled, and he smiled back.

  God, she loved his smile. How could one of the last men alive on Earth have such a wonderful smile?

  “So, do you have a name?” she asked.

  “Matt,” he said. “Matt Landel. An actual, native Oregonian, born and raised.�
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  She actually laughed at that, the sound echoing over the river. Being native was something that mattered only to Oregonians. She liked the name, and she liked how it sounded coming from his mouth. So far, she liked a lot about what she saw with this guy. And that worried her.

  “I’m Carissa Noack. People used to call me Carey. Also a native, through and through.”

  It felt strange using her full name after all the years. Strange, and yet somehow normal, as if having and using a full name returned a little civilization to the world.

  He smiled at her. “Nice meeting you, Carey.”

  “Nice to meet you as well, Matt,” she said.

  Then the silence of the city pounded back in on her as they stood like two high school kids at a dance wondering who was going to make the first move.

  “How about I cook us both breakfast?” Matt said, finally breaking the silence with a rushed sentence. “My stomach is starting to sound like an earthquake coming, and I bet you haven’t had a good omelet since you left the coast.”

  “Omelet?” she asked, the word out of her mouth before she had a chance to stop it. She hadn’t had anything like a real egg since she moved to the coast. On the hike in, she had seen chickens, but she hadn’t been able to get close to any.

  “Yeah, real eggs and everything,” he said. “Honest.”

  “How? Here in the city?”

  He nodded, smiling as if he were very proud of having eggs. “It seems chickens survived whatever killed everyone. So I went out into the country and trapped some, including roosters, and set them loose in the Rose Garden.”

  “You’re kidding?” she asked. The Rose Garden was the big basketball arena where the Portland Trailblazers had played.

  “I’m not,” he said, laughing again.

  His laugh just made her smile, and relax even more, even though she didn’t want to.

  “I figured the seats would make great nests for them, plus it’s big enough to hold a lot of birds and give them room to move around, but not escape.”

  She laughed at the idea of The Rose Garden as a giant chicken coop. How perfect. “What do you feed them? How many do you have?”

  He shrugged. “Every few weeks I scatter a pickup truck load of grain from sacks I found in a warehouse down by the river. Every month or so I trap some more birds and turn them loose in there. The population seems to be growing, but in a place that size it’s hard to count. I try to go get the eggs I can find every few days and there are always more than I can use. I take a bird or two every few weeks for special dinners. I bet I have five hundred birds now, if not more.”