by E S Richards
“Do you see anything?” Len asked after a moment, trying to take his mind off the grave and the countless other morbid thoughts it brought to his attention.
“No movement,” Harrison replied after another few seconds’ pause, slowly moving the rifle along the width of the building ahead of them, checking every tiny nook and cranny. “I definitely think more people were here when the building collapsed though. I can just about make out what looks like a body inside. I think maybe a bag and some other things, too.”
“A body?” Len remarked in a louder voice, shocked by Harrison’s statement. Where? How many? What does it look like?”
“Well, I can’t see much,” Harrison flicked a switch on the scope of the rifle, adjusting the sights slightly. “But now that the dust is settled I definitely think it’s likely some people were caught inside when the building collapsed. I guess they must have been caught off guard; I think it probably happened a short while after the initial reaction to the mass ejection.”
“Then what caused it?”
“I don’t know,” Harrison mused, finally taking the A3 away from his eye. “But I think we should check out the wreckage a bit closer now. I’m 99 percent sure we’re the only ones alive here and it looks like we could pillage a few good supplies if we have time.”
“Okay,” Len spoke cautiously in response, a little apprehensive about digging around in the country club when it had clearly only fallen down a few days before. He didn’t like that Harrison said there were people inside when it collapsed either; Amy and James sprang into his mind and he quickly shook his head to dissipate the thought of them being there when it all happened. Amy would have carried on walking. Her note said she had a destination and Len knew she was the type of woman who would stick to that. They wouldn’t stop so soon after leaving South Haven; the lakeside town was barely even out of sight.
“Follow me,” Harrison said from his now standing position, the A3 packed up and slung over his shoulder next to his rucksack. Len mirrored his actions, pulling his own rucksack and the bow and arrows back onto his shoulders and turning away from the grave he had sat beside.
“Where to?”
Harrison started walking without giving Len a response, leading him to the part of the country club that had seemed most interesting to him. He hadn’t been able to see much through the rifle scope, but partly due to the way the building had collapsed there were large gaps in the wreckage that Harrison believed were big enough for someone to walk through. It was almost like the upper floors had given way, but the ground level had remained partly intact, except for the ceilings of course.
What Harrison had seen led him to believe that if they could find a way into the wreckage and explore those gaps, they could scavenge supplies that would help them on the rest of their journey. Or, at the very least, allow them to learn more about what had happened to the country club.
“In here,” Harrison eventually answered Len’s question once they had walked the distance between the wing of the building where the dead woman and the grave were and the one they had been headed toward.
“We’re going inside?”
Len didn’t like the sound of that, his eyes widening as Harrison removed his rucksack and rifle and started to carefully move aside a few larger pieces of rubble so he could shuffle through the debris.
“It’s safe,” Harrison called from inside the collapsed building. “It’s not going to give way again.”
Len could only shake his head and squint into the darkness that Harrison had disappeared into. Despite how safe his friend may claim the building to be, he didn’t particularly want to go climbing around in it. A part of Len didn’t understand what they were still doing there. They had enough supplies to make the journey to Grand Haven without stopping to scavenge in old buildings. It was very unlike Harrison to want to slow their progress down and Len was more than confused about why they were spending so much time around the useless building.
“Are you coming in?”
Len shook his head another time and called into the darkness, replying to Harrison’s question. “Don’t we have enough supplies? I think we should keep going, away from here!”
“Just give me a hand with this!” Harrison’s voice carried back through the rubble, his footsteps growing louder as he returned to the edge of the mess. “Here,” Harrison spoke again, “can you reach through?”
Len coughed as more and more dust drifted up into the air, Harrison’s movements upsetting the layers of ash which had formed over almost every object. He peered through the clouds and saw the silhouette of his friend just inside the building, holding something out with both hands.
“What is it?” Len asked as he carefully took a few steps forward into the wreckage, reaching out to take the item from Harrison. His friend didn’t reply, instead picking his own way out and echoing Len’s coughs as the two of them waited for the dust and dirt to settle.
“Someone’s bag,” Harrison said after a few haggard coughs, spitting on the floor at the end of them to clear his throat properly. “Looks like it was packed after everything happened if you ask me. It should have some useful stuff in it in that case.”
Len sighed and placed the bag down on the floor. It was covered in dirt and grime, almost certainly a different color than it had been when first purchased. He was impressed it had managed to survive in such good condition in all honesty, and knew now it was at their feet it would be foolish for the two of them not to look inside. After that, though, Len wanted to move on. He could feel his connection to his son growing weaker with every passing day and Len needed to see the young boy again before he could truly be happy again.
“Go on, open it up.”
Len wiped a bit of the dirt from the top of the bag and unfastened the clasps at Harrison’s instruction. The contents inside were covered in muck as well, Len pulling them out one by one and laying them down on the ground between himself and Harrison. There was a battery-powered flashlight, still in working order much to their delight. An assortment of canned and dried food also put a smile on Len’s face, knowing that neither of them would go hungry with this added bounty. An unopened bottle of water was pulled out too, various items of clothing which looked to belong to a woman, and then a tiny child’s toy.
Len paused when he pulled out the toy, a small, stuffed bear no larger than his palm. It looked familiar, comforting somehow, as he let his hand close around it, holding it firmly in his grasp. Inhaling deeply, Len remembered that James had been given a small bear just like this about a year before he moved away by his grandparents—Amy’s mom and dad who now lived in Florida. Shaking slightly as the memory flooded his brain Len looked around at the items he had already pulled out of the bag.
The women’s clothes were generic, but he was sure Amy had owned T-shirts similar to those that lay on the ground and a large sweatshirt in a similar color. The branded foods he had pulled out were just like what she used to buy when they lived together: her favorite canned fruit and that strange-tasting packet soup that she loved so much. Come to think of it, even the bag looked similar to one Amy had taken camping many, many years ago, back when the three of them had been a happy family.
Shaking even more, Len looked down at the bag in his hand, now almost empty except for a few choice items. Harrison seemed oblivious to what was going on, the man now unpacking his own rucksack to see where the useful items could fit inside. Len on the other hand was almost breathless as his right hand reached back into the bag and his fingers curled around the next object. It was hard with defined edges, though not particularly heavy and with a slight rattle to it as Len slowly pulled it out of the folds of the bag and into the daylight. Seeing what was in his hand he automatically fell backwards onto the grass from his kneeling position, the small wooden box clutched in his right hand like it was the most important thing in the world to him. And, in that moment, it was.
Len couldn’t believe it. The bag was Amy’s; the wooden box inside identical to the one
in his rucksack. The one he had risked his life running into his burning house to rescue. His shaking was now joined by long, panting breaths as Len tried desperately to calm himself down enough to open the box. Harrison was watching with a puzzled expression on his face that eventually cracked with realization, he too recognizing the box in Len’s hands.
“Is that—” Harrison started to speak, his voice instantly cut off by his companion’s.
“It’s Amy’s.” Len was completely dumbfounded, baffled by the item that he now held in his hands. “She was here,” he continued, “she must have been here.”
Harrison knew instantly what that meant and prepared himself for the distress and panic that would surely consume Len. If he had just carried Amy’s bag out of the wreckage, that left a strong possibility that she had been inside the country club when it collapsed. Could Amy have made it out alive? Harrison didn’t know much about the woman save for what Len had told him and the small observations he had made while living down the road from her for several years. She was clearly a well-put-together woman but the fact she had a child with her made everything ten times harder. Could she have made it out alive? Probably, but could she have done it with an eight-year-old child to look after? Of that, Harrison had his doubts.
“Len,” Harrison started to speak, reaching down slightly in an attempt to grab his friend’s attention and distract him somehow.
It was useful though; Len stared at the wooden box in his hands almost like it contained his family. He couldn’t help it, he had to look inside. Carefully opening the familiar clasp, Len pulled up the lid and cast his first glance at the objects inside. The breath was almost knocked out of his lungs as the sheer wave of emotions tore through him, drowning all his worries and fears and replacing them for a short moment with blissful, unimaginable love.
He looked down at pictures of his son, his wife, and even a picture of himself with the two of them. He touched a lock of James’s baby hair, one of his first teeth, and the first picture he had ever drawn. He fought back tears as he read snippets of love letters he had sent to Amy during the early days of their relationship, confessing how much she meant to him and how much she always would. Len’s lower lip wobbled as he brushed his fingers against a ring case inside the box, one he had presented to Amy on one of the most special days of his life. Silently Len opened the lid and smiled as he saw both the engagement ring and the wedding ring he had given to Amy; he remembered sliding them onto her dainty finger as if the moment had only happened yesterday. He felt her hand in his and her eyes on him as she said yes and they both smiled, holding each other for hours as they basked in the moment together.
Len couldn’t stop his tears from falling and Harrison could only watch in silence as his heart swelled for his friend, unable to think what Len was going through in that moment. Len cried silently for a few minutes, his eyes not lifting from the wooden box he clutched desperately in his hands. Every emotion under the sun cascaded through his body, fighting for pole position in a life Len had never imagined he would end up having.
He let the rational thoughts creep slowly into his head as the seconds ticked by. Amy’s bag had been inside the country club. Harrison said he had seen a dead body inside too. Amy had definitely been here. That meant James had definitely been there. There was a woman with a cut throat and a freshly dug grave just a stone’s throw away. Len didn’t know who was under that pile of dirt. It could be anyone, but it also could be his ex-wife or his son. Or…
Len closed his eyes and pictured his son’s face alongside Amy’s. He pictured them happily together, comfortable in the lake house in Grand Haven, laughing and playing and waiting for him to arrive. Amy’s bag may have been inside the country club, but that didn’t mean she had been as well. Len refused to believe his family had been crushed by the falling building. Amy could’ve left her bag behind before the building fell, or she could have lost it afterwards. Whatever had happened, she was safe and she had James by her side; Len wouldn’t allow himself to believe anything besides that.
Climbing to his feet, Len closed Amy’s wooden box and packed it carefully inside his own rucksack. Harrison watched silently as his now delusional companion wiped the tears from his cheeks and got ready to leave, not once making eye contact with him and instead staring off into the distance.
“Let’s go,” Len said with a dazed look in his eyes. “We’ve still got a long way to walk before we reach Grand Haven.”
Chapter 13
Harrison was concerned about Len. He wasn’t reacting how he—or any other rational human being—normally would after finding his ex-wife’s possessions in a collapsed building. Harrison knew Len pretty well now after their time traveling together. They’d encountered many, many roadblocks since leaving Chicago, some more literal than others, and never had Len reacted how he just had.
The two of them walked away from the country club silently, Len refusing to take no for an answer and refusing to stop and look through the ruins any further. Harrison had expected him to run straight into them, desperately searching for any sign of his ex-wife and son, but instead Len had demanded they leave, saying they were only wasting time by being there. The only word Harrison could think of to describe his friend was delusional. Somehow Len seemed certain that Amy and James were not at the country club and instead were already safely waiting at the lake house they were walking toward. Perhaps it was desperation, perhaps it was necessary in order to stop Len from breaking down into a useless mess of grief and sorrow, but whatever the reason, Len wouldn’t even entertain the idea that his family was back at the country club. Harrison suspected the delusion was the only thing keeping Len going; the refusal to believe his loved ones were dead the most powerful hope he could’ve been given. He knew it wasn’t healthy for Len, but for now Harrison understood that it was probably necessary in order for them to keep moving.
Leaving the wreckage of the country club behind, the two of them continued to walk north. They roughly followed route 196, keeping between it and the lake so they were vaguely protected on both side by trees. Harrison wished they could’ve somehow brought the Dodge Fargo along with them; driving would’ve meant they could reach Grand Haven in about a day. Sadly there had been little chance of them maneuvering it through the gridlocked roads of South Haven, unless they’d wanted to take the long route around, which would’ve burned through half of their fuel.
Still, Harrison kept one eye on the road to his right as they walked, peering through the gaps in the trees in hope of seeing another old truck. All the modern cars were utterly useless now and undoubtedly would be for some time, but the old-fashioned engines from when Harrison was a child were—as he had now learned—salvageable with the right tools.
The silence between him and Len gave Harrison some more time to think about everything that had happened, everything that had changed, and how everything would end up. Even though he had been preparing for something like this ever since his wife passed away, the reality of it was unlike anything Harrison had imagined. It was subtler in a way, less like the natural disasters he had read about or the nuclear explosions he had long expected to happen. It had been a running joke within his small underground community over which would destroy the planet first: nature fighting back, or man stupidly stabbing himself in the back.
In the end it had been nature, and in a way Harrison was glad for that. It meant that everyone was on the same playing field and there was not the fear of radiation poisoning which he had often laid awake at night worrying about, with no real idea how to prepare for it if it did happen.
Though, this natural disaster wasn’t much like the simulations Harrison had run. He still understood it perfectly, but a small part of him had been hoping for a tsunami or an ice age once the world finally decided to break down. Instead he was left with blistering heat and what sometimes just felt like a long walk in the desert. He smiled to himself slightly as he realized what he was thinking; he had to be one of the only people left alive who w
as complaining about what had happened because it wasn’t enough of a doomsday scenario for him.
Trying to focus his mind on more realistic matters, Harrison wondered how his daughter, Nina, was surviving in Canada. He still wasn’t exactly certain where she lived but knew Toronto was the best place to start. How he would even begin searching for her in the massive city was another question, but he had managed to survive Chicago so Toronto shouldn’t be much worse. He just hoped she had the good sense to stay indoors or camp out somewhere safe. She had a family now and Harrison knew they would be her top priority; a sentiment he should’ve shared long before the solar crash forced him to.
Deep down, Harrison was ashamed of how he had acted in the years since his wife’s death. He knew he had been a terrible father and he didn’t blame Nina for moving away as soon as she was old enough to do so. He had tried to stay in touch at first, but as she grew up her features continued to look more and more like Sophia’s had, and every time Harrison looked at his daughter he could only see the ghost of his dead wife. Sophia had been the only woman he had ever loved, the only woman he had even considered being with. He would’ve willingly died for her and it killed him that she had been the one who had to go.