Part 32

Lisa Fang, Buena Vista, Virginia

Lisa requested the tower bedroom for her temporary home.  She claimed she wanted it for the view, which in all fairness was partially true.  The view was indeed stunning. 

But the main reason she wanted the tower was because it gave her privacy.  And right now she needed privacy so she could use her Sat-Phone.  She kept it in her purse where no one would really look. 

She hung up the phone and put it back in the false bottom of her purse.

She hadn’t been able to call Beijing in several days and she had to give her report.  A lot had happened in the past few days.  Also, it felt good to speak Mandarin again.  She hated pretending to speak English badly.  That had been her cover for so long that she automatically did it with these people she had never met.  Now she was stuck with it.  

She was stuck with them as well.  No one could have predicted that the Americans would unleash a doomsday virus.  She thought the days of Mutually Assured Destruction were over.  Now she was trapped here in a devastated world and in a country that wasn’t her own. 

Things could be worse, not much but it was possible.  She found a group of survivors she could trust.  They needed help indeed, but she needed them as well.  Without them she wouldn’t be able to survive.  She knew nothing about farming and most Americans’ distrust of the Chinese wouldn’t help either. 

But, this was a beautiful place and there were worse places to survive the end of the world. 

“Hey, Fangs! Breakfast is ready!”  Adam called up. 

“Be there in minute!”  She called back down. 

She had been training for cultural infiltration since she was fifteen.  This had been a mission she was born for.  Now none of it mattered.  For five years she had trained to be an agent in America, now it was all pointless. 

She was pointless.  She would survive, but what was the point of survival without a purpose?

She was a tool that no longer had a function.

The only thing she could do was continue to play along and

She walked down the spiraling staircase and found the others gathered in the cafeteria.  There were no lights but there were plenty of windows. 

What ever they were eating didn’t smell good at all. 

“What is this?”  She asked as she took her seat next to Alex. 

She trusted Alex.

“Spam and instant eggs.  It’s good,” Alex said. 

“Is it?”

She had her doubts and her first forkful confirmed her suspicions.  She must have made a face because Adam commented on it.

“See?  She don’t like it either,” Adam said. 

“I’m glad its not kosher because I wouldn’t want to eat it.  I’ll stick to my eggs,” Rebekah said.

“After breakfast let’s search around the University here and then we’ll search the town,” Alex said.

“I don’t think we’ll find much,” Spencer said.

“We’re not just looking for supplies, we’re looking for things that can help us down the road, antique farm equipment, seeds, tools, I don’t know what else, but anything,” Alex said.

“I’ll be in the library,” Jennifer said. 

“Good, look up books about farming.  None of us are farmers and without some kind of knowledge, we’re going to starve,” Alex said.     

After breakfast she slung her American M4 and followed Alex around the school.  It was a small school.  There were a few dorm buildings, a three story class building, a small office building in an old rickety house and down the ways a bit was an art studio filled with students’ art.  

It was a shame but art wouldn’t be useful for a long time, not until society rose above the level of survival.  She didn’t know how long that would be. 

Her government education covered a lot of topics and much had been expected of her, but some things just weren’t on the schedule.  Surviving the end of civilization wasn’t on the agenda. 

She missed China and knew she’d never see it again.

“Ready to hit the town?”  He asked.

“Sure,” she said.

They walked down a narrow, crumbling stone staircase down the hill and into the town.  Some of the houses looked pieced together from other bits of houses.  Others looked old and some looked old and nice.  

Rural America wasn’t what she had thought it would be like.  It wasn’t what she had seen on TV.  She had expected sweeping prairies, cowboy hats and country music.  This place was just like the rest of America except smaller, poorer and older.   

She scanned the buildings for signs of movement or occupation.  Somebody had to have survived here.  Perhaps the survivors went elsewhere?

Then she heard something moving between two old stores, a pizza place and an ice cream parlor.  She spun around and raised her M4.  There was nothing in the alleyway except an old cat scrounging around for food. 

“A cat,” she said.

“We could eat it,” he said.

“Too loud.  Waste ammo,” she said. 

They needed something like a .22, a smaller caliber for smaller creatures.  She began to think of recipes for cat.  Fried cat was good.

Growing up in the state orphanage made her used to eating anything.  The food was never enough and some days they’d go hungry.  So, they hunted whatever they could. 

They found a hardware store on their main street that had old non-motorized farm equipment. 

“Jackpot,” Alex said. 

They looked around the store while he took notes on a small notebook.  Carrying around a notebook was a good idea.

“You have family back in China?”  Alex asked as he checked out a dusty plow.

“Yeah,” she said.  She didn’t but her cover identity did.

“I’m sorry.”

“It okay.  You no end world.”

“How long you been in America?”

“Five year.”

“I bet you miss China.”

“I do,” she said truthfully. 

“I miss Las Vegas but I know that if I went back, it wouldn’t be the same.  I don’t think I’d want to see it without power or people.”

She couldn’t imagine an empty Beijing, but nearly empty it was.  Perhaps it would be best if she didn’t have to see it like that.  She wondered if her commanders were surviving in a bunker somewhere.  They had to have had a plan to escape.  They were too good to just die in a plague.

“This my home now,” Lisa said. 

Through all her lies the truth came out whenever it could.  She hid her lies behind simple honesty. 

“My home as well.”

After taking inventory of the old, used farm equipment, they continued down main street looking for anything else of interest.  There wasn’t so they started searching homes.  They did that for a few hours and found a few cans of food, some hunting rifles and shotguns and some ammo.  She had slung on her back a Ruger 10-22, a semi-auto .22 that would be great for small game. 

They walked past that alleyway and she saw the same cat.  They had to make their more durable supplies last so any fresh food had to be taken advantage of. 

“Alex, hold on,” she said. 

She took aim down the low magnification scope on the .22 and put the simple crosshairs between the cat’s large, green eyes. 

“Pretty kitty,” she said before squeezing the trigger.

Post 31

Alex, Buena Vista, Virginia

As Alex drove through the narrow, winding mountain roads of Virginia, he looked around the cramped truck at his people.  They were his clan now and yet one of them had shot two men in the head in less than a second.  Alma was capable of something like that, but from watching her he knew that it took years of training to accomplish something like that.

Someone either got really, really lucky or someone was better at fighting than they let on.  The latter was a disturbing thought. 

The sunlight flickered through the trees as they drove around the curving bends.  If he had been on his motorcycle this would have been a fun road to speed down.

Eventually they reached the summit and there was an opening in the trees.  He slowed to a stop to get a better look.  The valley lay open in front of them.  He could see rolling hills, a blue river and green land until it disappeared into the haze of the distance. 

Already he could tell that he liked this place. 

“You picked a good spot, Jennifer,” Spencer said.

“I did, didn’t I?” Jennifer said.

“It’s so pretty,” Rebekah said. “Like a promised land.”

Lisa remained silent.

The slope down was steep and all he had to do was coast.  By the time they reached the bottom he had to keep his foot on the breaks just to maintain control. 

The first building they saw was a plain but large looking house on the right and then they saw a tourist info place.  Was there really that much to learn about this town that it required a whole building?

The road curved and soon he was passing by old, run down garages, small apartments and eventually a four way intersection with a Hardee’s that had broken windows and a collapsed roof.

“Alright, which way?” Alex asked.

“Main street seems to be to the left,” Adam said.

He took a left and went down what passed for a main street.  There was a closed down grocery store that had been empty since before the war and then they came to the smallest, saddest looking movie theater he had seen. 

“Look up there,” Rebekah said.

He looked where she was pointing and saw that on a hill was a giant, red and white building with towers and arches.  It looked very old, like something from the turn of the century. 

“What is it?” Alex asked.

“It’s Southern Virginia University,” Jennifer said.

“Sounds like as good a place as any to spend the night,” he said.

“I’d like to see their library,” Jennifer said.

“I bet their cafeteria has cans of food,” Adam said.

They drove up the long driveway to the front yard of the giant red building. It sure didn’t look like any school he had ever seen.  It looked more like a crazy mansion mixed with a hotel.

They parked their truck in front of the main entrance that had a large porch like an old plantation house, complete with rocking chairs. 

“Looks cozy so far,” Rebekah said.

Lisa went to the door first and tested the knob.  Unlocked.  Her sunglassed eyes looked to him and nodded.  She opened the door and Alex entered first.  Inside was dark but the windows let in more than enough light to see.  The main lobby had some dusty old antique furniture and a large fire place.  There were pamphlets about the school, paintings of people that used to be important and a large tapestry.

The bottom floor was offices, meeting rooms, a ballroom with a sagging wooden floor and the cafeteria.  The kitchen had lots of canned food, mostly beans, macaroni salad and flour. 

“I could make a cake with this,” Rebekah said.

“I thought you didn’t know how to cook,” Alex said.

“I don’t.  Cake is the only thing my mom ever taught me to make.”

“I could make dinner with this,” Lisa said.

“Please do, fangs,” Alex said.

“Fangs?”

“Yeah, because you’re vicious. You have fangs.”

“I’m not mean,” Lisa said.

“It’s a joke.”

Rebekah began working on her cake, Lisa started cooking up something that smelled good and Adam and Jennifer went off to scout the area out some more.  The place had several buildings and there was a lot to search.  

As they worked in the kitchen he and Spencer went and brought all the stuff in from the truck and began to lay all their supplies out for inventory.  They picked up two AK-47’s, a Ruger Mini-14 with a scope, a large .357 revolver and a plain Jane FAL.  They also had some canned food, some knives, some camping gear and detailed maps of the area.

“Maybe Lisa will want an AK. You know, remind her of back home,” Spencer said.

“Chinese don’t use AK’s anymore and she wasn’t in the army.”

“So she says,” Spencer said.

“You can’t go around blaming every Chinese person because our governments had a war. Common people don’t get asked what they want.”

The food was ready before Adam and Jennifer came back.  He called them on the walkie talkie and they took a few moments to respond. 

“Food’s ready,” Alex said.

“We’ll be there in a few. Just want to check this place out first,” Adam said.

Lisa came out holding a giant bowl of…he didn’t know what, but it smelled good.  There was rice and vegetables all mixed up.  His mouth began watering. 

“Lisa, if for no other reason, we’d keep you on just because of your cooking.”

“I like cooking,” she said with a shy smile.  He didn’t know she got shy. 

They were halfway finished with the meal before Adam and Jennifer came back.

“The library’s pretty unimpressive, but it’s something. I’m sure we can find books that could help us settle in to a new life,” Jennifer said. 

“Excellent.  We’ll look at that tomorrow.  For now, sit and eat.”

They sat around one of the cafeteria’s tables and talked and relaxed.  It felt almost normal. 

“We made it to the valley,” Alex said.  “I say we take tomorrow off and just relax here and see what we can find.”

“I like that idea!”  Spencer said.  

“Then the day after we’ll look around and see if we can find a nice place to settle down in,” Jennifer said.

“We have to stick together. Farming is a group effort,” Adam said.

“Agreed,” Alex said.  “We need fresh water, land, animals, and hopefully equipment that doesn’t require gas.”

“That’s a tall order,” Rebekah said.

“We have time to look,” he said.

Part 30

Alma, western Colorado

Alma hated jogging or walking up hills.  She hated mountains even more.  They had been walking up hill all day.  The Rocky Mountains were huge.  She had never seen mountains this big before and they hadn’t even gotten to the actual mountains yet.  The grey, snow caped mountains were still in front of them and had been all day. 

“I don’t think I’m a big fan of mountain hiking,” Cassidy said.  She removed her straw cowboy hat and wiped her brow.

“It can’t be that bad, we only have another week or so walking through treacherous mountain passes.”

Cass groaned but she kept marching on.  

“If Vernal survived, how many other towns you think made it?”  Cass asked after an hour of silence. 

Alma was too out of breath to answer so she sat down on the side of the road and took out one of her water bottles. 

“I don’t know.  America’s full of small towns.  Heck, most of the Dakotas are probably still there.  And the islands and New Hampshire.  No one ever goes there,” Alma said.

“Maybe Alaska made it?”

“Maybe.”

“I’ve been thinking, maybe we can find one of these towns and settle down.”

“After we find my brother.”

“Oh, of course.  But we’ll have to show that we’re useful and not just two dumb teenagers.”

“We are useful.  You’re smart and we can both shoot.”

“I was thinking that we might need something more.  Maybe we can find a book on how to be electricians.  Maybe that could let us in.”

“We got time.  We have to make it all the way to Virginia first.”

“I know.  I was just thinking.”

She was probably right.  They needed to learn more if they wanted to survive.

Once they were rested they continued on walking.  The roads here were in better shape than most of Utah and weren’t crumbling before their eyes. 

“I think I hate Colorado,” Alma said.

“It wouldn’t be so bad if we had a car.”

“Find me gas and we’ll walk back and grab our car.”

“Yeah, right.  These small towns don’t have anything.”

“Didn’t have much before the war.”

Cassidy started coughing.  Alma didn’t think much of it, but she kept coughing.  She also didn’t look too good.

“You alright?”  Alma asked.

“Yeah, fine.  Just feel a little tired.”

“Okay, but if you start getting sick, tell me.”

“Will do.”

They marched all the rest of the day, walking for an hour and resting for fifteen minutes.  Alma kept her eye on Cass and by the time they stopped to make camp, Cass wasn’t looking so good.

They used their fire starter kit to make a nice fire and set up their two-woman tent. 

“Hey, we’re taking tomorrow off,” Alma said.

“Good.  I think I can use a break.”

Cass laid down beside the fire while Cass poured two cans of beans into their pot. 

“Okay, Alma, I think I’m coming down with something.”

“You think?  Pretty darn obvious.”

“Yeah, yeah.  My mom always got after me about that.  She had to force me to stay home from school or church.”

“I thought you were home schooled.”

“Not during elementary.”

“So, you’ve always been stubborn.”

“Pretty much.”

Cass draped her arm over her eyes and a few minutes later she was snoring.  She woke up long enough to eat some beans but then went right back to sleep. 

Alma wasn’t going to show it in front of Cass, but she was worried.  An illness now could be serious.  There weren’t any doctors around and she knew nothing of medicine. 

Her mom was a nurse but whatever talent that required wasn’t passed down.  Maybe it skipped a generation.  Her mom, despite working with traditional medicine, always liked natural remedies best. 

Now Alma wished she had paid more attention. 

But then, maybe this was just a small cold and she was worrying about nothing.

As Cass slept Alma sat there looking up at the stars.  The air was so clear here and the mountains, now that they were finally getting near them, were very beautiful, even at night.  

She was glad to have lived to see this.  Perhaps she still had some things she still had to do in life.  Was it fate?  She had never really believed in fate before and didn’t really believe it now, but for the first time she was wondering. 

Maybe she was kidding herself with all this.  Maybe she had gone crazy.  Chasing after a brother that was more than likely dead.  Cass had a point.  It would make more sense to find a good town and settle down.  They had a much better chance of surviving in a community.  On their own they were vulnerable to anything.  One mistake could cost them their lives. 

But then she couldn’t stop thinking about Alex.  She knew he was alive somewhere and she was going to find him no matter what and no matter how long it took. 

Part 29

Alex, Amherst, Virginia

The first sign ahead of them said “Welcome to Amherst.”  The second sign said “Strangers will be shot.”

“I could remark on the duality of mankind’s nature, but I’ll refrain,” Jennifer said. 

Rebekah walked up to the second sign and stretched her shoulders back.  Her hands remained on her pistol belt. 

“Well, well.  This is the only road that goes through the mountains here.  If we don’t go this way we’ll have to go around and that’ll take another…two days?”  Rebekah said. 

“It’s already been four days,” Adam said. 

Lisa walked out in front of the group and tipped her sunglasses down to get a better look.  Her brows knitted in the middle but she remained silent.  He wondered what she was thinking.  Sometimes she seemed remarkably open and talkative and sometimes she was as closed as a bank vault. 

What made her tick?

“Is this some lone paranoid psycho or is it a group like we met back a few days ago,” Adam asked.

“Can we sneak around the town and get back on the road?”  Rebekah asked.

Alex looked at his map.  The map showed that last little town that led to the road through the mountain was called “Forks of Buffalo.” The map showed that Amherst had a few roads around it that could help them navigate.

“Yeah, we’ll go around,” Alex said.

They got off the road and began circling around.  They should come to a highway and then turn back west. 

The forest wasn’t so bad.  It had more shade than the road and if he ignored everything else he could pretend he was hiking or hunting.

Their group came out at the highway and he went ahead to check the area out first.  It looked empty each way.  He waved for the others to come up while he kept watch. 

They made it across the highway and made their way around Amherst.  It added two hours to their travel but it was better to be safe.  When they got back on the main road they hadn’t got as far as they had hoped.  In front of them was another sign warning strangers to not come to Amherst.

“I always thought the people here were supposed to be friendly,” Rebekah said.

“I guess they had hard times,” Jennifer said.

“Or bad people took over,” Adam said.

“I don’t care to find out,” Alex said. 

Then the sound of a truck reached their ears.  They all looked in that direction, the direction of Amherst.

A truck full of armed men came from around the curve of the road. Six or seven men.  They were spotted. 

“Run,” Alex ordered calmly.

They ran back to the edge of the woods as shots rang out.  Bullets hit the trees around them as they made it into the forest. 

The truck came to a screeching halt and the men jumped out.  Alex didn’t try to get a close look.  He was running and trying not to trip over a root or fallen branch. 

“Why are they shooting at us?!” Rebekah asked. 

A bullet struck a tree uncomfortably close to his head. 

These hillbillies would know the woods better than his little group.  They’d track his friends even if they did manage to get away. 

“We have to stop them,” he called out. 

Without waiting for their response he whirled around, got behind a thick tree and began firing.  He hit one of them right off, looked like an arm or shoulder hit.  He saw a spray of blood and the man twist to his right before falling down. 

The others took cover behind trees and began firing back. 

Bullets zipped by him and struck the tree he was hiding behind.

Alex looked back and saw his people taking cover and returning fire.  Good.  None of them were freaking out. 

He peeked around the tree, saw someone running for a small boulder.  He snapped his M4 up, placed the floating, glowing, red dot on the man and fired. The man tumbled forward and landed on his face. 

The man’s buddies must not have liked that because several of them opened fire on his position.  Alex motioned for his people to move around and flank them from the side while they were preoccupied with him. 

A quick glance showed that there were five of the men left.  They were dressed in hunting camo and had beards and wild looks in their eyes.  Whoever they were, they weren’t just locals hard up on their luck.  Highway bandits or something like that.

The bandits noticed his people moving around them and they shifted fire from him to them. 

Alex popped back out and lay aimed his next shots at a group of three of them. But before he could pull the trigger one of them was hit right in the forehead.  His hat flew off and the man next to him barely had time to register surprise before a bullet hit him in the head as well.  It had taken about a second for it to all happen.

After seeing that, the remaining men turned tail and began running back to their truck. 

Alex looked back to his group trying to figure out who had fired those shots.  Either it was luck or one of his team was a better shot that any of them had realized. 

“Follow them and take their truck!”  Rebekah shouted out.

He had a split second to decide if the truck was worth the risk.  One of their lives was not worth a truck, but then killing these men now might save lives down the road.

“After them!”  He shouted out.

They ran after the three men and got to the road just as the men were jumping in the truck. 

Alex took aim at the head of the man that fumbling with the truck’s keys.  He breathed in and out and let the red dot rest on the man’s temple.  Slowly and smoothly he pulled the trigger. 

The man’s head jerked and blood flew all over the cabin.  The man that had been right beside him also took the same bullet and both of them flopped over dead.  The third man bolted out the door and ran for the other side of the road.  He didn’t have his AK.

Lisa came up beside him and raised her gun. 

“He’s unarmed,” Alex said.

“So?  He can get armed.  He can go get friends and bring more bad men.”

He didn’t stop her.  She took aim but before she could fire, Adam fired and shot the man between the shoulder blades. 

As they approached the truck Alex wondered if he should be pleased or bothered by his people’s ability to kill.  He also needed to know who shot those two men in the head.     

“We got a truck again!”  Rebekah said with a forced smile.  

Jennifer walked up and looked inside the cabin. Tears were welling up in her eyes.

“Why you cry?”  Lisa asked.

“They were human beings.”

“They were scumbags,” Lisa said.

“I know, but I regret having to do what we did.  It shouldn’t have been necessary.  None of this should.  We caused all these problems,” Jennifer said, waving her hands around. 

“Taking a life isn’t an easy thing.  It shouldn’t be.  We’re supposed to save it for when it’s necessary, not when it was convenient.  If we let those men go, they’d continue to prey on the weak.  This isn’t how things used to be.  There’s no judges or courts.  We’re it.  We are now the law.  It would have been far worse to let them continue hurting others,” Alex said.

This got him a firm nod from a steel faced Lisa.  

Rebekah was trying to act as steel faced but she was also on the point of tears.  He would have to talk to her, but in private.

They pulled the bodies from the truck and did their best to clean off the blood. They did a quick inventory of water, food, guns and ammo that were in the truck. The truck started up with a roar and they were on their way again, heading up into the Blue Ridge Mountains.  On the other side was Buena Vista, Lexington and the rest of the Shenandoah valley where hopefully they’d find their new home.   

Part 28

      

Alma, Western Colorado

 She woke up in the tent and rolled over to her back.  Cass wasn’t in her sleeping bag.  Good.  That meant she was still on watch.  There were a lot of weirdies around and they couldn’t afford to sleep without one of them keeping guard.

She crawled out and found Cass sitting by a small fire.  She was cooking some of that deer meat they had butchered yesterday.  

“Breakfast?” Alma asked.

“Yeah!  Smells good, right?”

It kind of did.  She crawled over and sat down on a rock next to Cass.  She wiggled her toes in the warm sand.  It felt good, almost like she was at a really weird beach. 

As they ate their breakfast of deer meat, they looked over their map.  They couldn’t go through Denver but if they continued on Highway 40 they’d go north of Denver and bypass the radioactive area. 

“Looks like the first town of any real size we’ll come to is a place called ‘Craig.’ I hope our gas lasts that long,” Cass said. 

Alma looked back to the car.

“It had better last.  We need gas or we’re walking and I hate walking.”

After they ate they loaded up the car again and continued on.  They had their music playing and Alma kept watch while Cass drove. 

They drove for another four hours until they came to a sign that said “Craig 15 miles.”

“Not far, yeah?”  Alma said.

“Yeah, but our gas gauge is on Empty.”

“Think we’ll make it?”

As if to answer her question the car began to sputter and die. 

“You got to be kidding me!” Alma shouted.

“No, no, no, no, no,” Cass said repeatedly. 

Despite their protests, the car came to a stop along the side of the road. 

The two of them sat there in silence for a while.  Then Cassidy looked over to her.

“I guess we’re walking,” Cass said.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Reluctantly Alma got out and went over to the rear hatch.  She opened it and pulled out the wagon they found at Home Depot.  They put on their packs and filled the wagon with their food, ammo and weapons.  Then they filled the other wagon.  When they were both ready, they slowly began walking.  Caesar was on a leash tied to Cass’s wagon.  He plodded on behind them like nothing was wrong.  

“This sucks,” Alma said.

“It doesn’t help to complain.  We still have a lot of blessings here.”

“I’d rather have the car.  Fifteen miles?  How long that going to take us?”

“Rest of the day, I imagine.”

Suddenly the desert road looked a lot longer than it did before. 

They walked on for an hour without talking and just looking as the hills as they slowly passed by. 

“Think they still need breeders back in Vernal?”  Cass asked.

Alma looked over to her and saw that goofy grin of hers. 

“Maybe. We can go ask.”

“You have some good birthing hips there, Alma.  Maybe ten kids?  Eleven?”

“Don’t laugh now, my great grandmother had twelve.”

“Twelve? Wow!”

“Back in Mexico in those days, it wasn’t rare. I’m not going to have twelve.  No, sir!”

“Why not?  This is your chance to make sure that countless descendants bare the name of Attaway.  It could become the most common name on Earth if you have a lot of kids now.”

“I don’t think the benefits make it worth the pain.”

“You lack vision,” Cass said with a laugh.

“I’d rather have like a royal dynasty.  We could rule our own country.  A country ruled by queens instead of kings.  Maybe women wouldn’t kill off the world like the men did.”

“Nah, whenever women are in power, they act identical to how the men act.  Power is power.  Gender doesn’t really play into it.”

“Then how would you suggest keeping this,” Alma waved her hands around, “from happening again?”

“Understanding.”

“You think if we just understood the Chinese they wouldn’t have invaded?”

“No, it would take mutual understanding and trust on both sides over a long period of time.”

“I don’t see that happening.”

“And that’s what’s wrong with the world.  No one can trust anyone.  Especially now.  I’m afraid once civilization gets back on its feet it’s going to look more like the Dark Ages than the 21^st century.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

After two hours they stopped and took a little break.  Alma looked at their water supply and wasn’t happy.  It was enough for three, maybe four days at most.  

And this desert was getting hot. 

All the rest of the day they didn’t see a single sign of civilization: not even a road sign. 

They talked about school and what they had wanted to be when they grew up.  Cass wanted to be a veterinarian for horses.  Alma wanted to be a professional competition shooter with her own TV show.

“I wish we had some horses,” Cass said.

“Better than walking.”

“I love horses.  Maybe we can find some.”

“I’m all for that.  If it gets me off my feet.  I like it.”

Around sunset they came to the edge of Craig Colorado.  At first it was just a few small houses, but then the houses grew nicer.  It was as good a place to camp out as any.  They shouldered their weapons and began searching the houses.  They found a few cans of food and found the nicest house in the area. 

They slept on the top floor in dusty but very comfortable beds. Caesar slept in Cass’s bed.

Alma couldn’t sleep and looked out the window at the empty dark street.  The neighborhood looked torn up from neglect and it just didn’t feel right. It shouldn’t be this still and this quiet.

The world didn’t feel right. 

None of it did.

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Part 27

Alex Attaway, Cumberland, Virginia

Alex moved slowly around the corner, keeping his gun pointed at anything he might see.  This was the fifth house he had searched and so far they had only found a few cans of food. 

Lisa was right behind him with her M4.  She moved very quietly and sometimes he had to look behind him just to make sure she was still there.  She had her sunglasses, black baseball cap and hair in a ponytail. 

She looked good in tactical vest. 

“This place is empty.  We should go,” Lisa said.

“Yeah, you’re right.” 

They met back up with the others at their house and shared what they had found.  It wasn’t much. 

“Alright, time to get a move on.  We have a long way to go,” Alex said. 

“How far is it?”  Spencer asked. 

“About eighty miles,” Jennifer said.

“About three days,” Alex said. 

“That long? We need to find a car, man,” Spencer said.

“That would be nice but I wouldn’t count on it. After a year and a half you’re going to have a very hard time finding a working car and a gas.  Like it or not, but we’re walking,” Alex said. 

“Then we better get going,” Adam said. 

No one else said anything so they began walking down the road.  Like the houses they passed, the roads were crumbling and falling apart.  He wondered how long it would be before the roads were unusable.

“Drink water now.  It’s hot,” Lisa said.

Alex tried not to act surprised by her unexpected show of leadership.  Maybe she was finally coming out of her shell. 

The trees offered plenty of shade but the humidity had them drenched in sweat before noon. 

“I don’t like this heat,” Lisa said quietly.  

He slowed down a little so she could catch up to him. 

“You don’t like Virginia’s lovely weather?”

“No.  I come from town by ocean.  Much better.”

“Hey, I come from Las Vegas.  It’s hotter but much drier.  You don’t feel it nearly as much.”

“Las Vegas?”

“Yeah.”

“You there for…big attack?”

“Yes, I was there when China attacked. My mother was killed that day.”

Lisa looked to the ground and swallowed. 

“Don’t worry.  I don’t blame you.  You’re not in the Chinese Army.”

She continued to avoid his gaze.

“Hey, the world’s a different place now.  All that’s in the past,” he said. 

She made a brief and forced smile. 

“Do you all hate me?”  She asked even quieter than before. 

“No, we don’t.  Lisa, look at me.”

She glanced up and he saw her eyes above the rim of her black sunglasses. 

“We don’t hate you.  You’re one of us.  We’re all in this together, okay?”

“Okay,” she said and went back to looking at her feet. 

She slung her M4 to the side and grabbed her water bottle.  He noticed how easily she moved the weapon and her pack around.  This chick must have been hitting the gym a lot this past year and a half. 

“Did you go to school?”  He asked.

“John Tyler Community College.  Part time.  Worked at restaurant mostly.” 

“What did you study?”

“Criminal Forensics.”

“Forensics?  Really?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s pretty cool!  You could be like that show, CSI!”

“I get to wear fancy suits and drive fancy car, get in gunfights,” she said.

“Well, unfortunately the gunfight part has turned out to be true.”

“I liked the…quiet of forensics.  I know show was total crap.”

“I was going to study law.  Become a lawyer.”

“You?  A lawyer?”

“Hey, I wasn’t always a Marine.  I never imagined myself as one.  I always thought I’d end up being a lawyer.  Even as a kid that’s what I wanted to be.  What six year old decides he wants to study law?”

“But you good at being a Marine.”

He laughed. 

“I don’t know about that.  I managed to live this long, so maybe I’m not totally awful at it.”

“No, you are great, Alex.  The people listen to you.  They follow you and trust you.  You are great man.’

That took him back.  A great man?  He wasn’t great.  He was barely ‘alright,’ maybe ‘pretty good’ on rare occasions.

“I think that’s something we’ll have to see down the road.  If we don’t make it to the valley and we don’t find food and water, then you probably won’t be so nice to me.”

“We’ll find what we need.”

“You seem confident about that.”

She shrugged. 

“I got a feeling.”

They fell into silence for a while and only the steady beat of their footfalls accompanied them. 

“Hey, if anyone starts to feel a blister forming or their feet start hurting, speak up.  It’s better to fix a problem before it becomes a big problem.”

Rebekah was getting tired so they stopped for a quick and light lunch. Eating a lot when they still had so much walking to do wasn’t a good idea.  He just chewed on his MRE cheese crackers and wondered what Alma would be doing if she were still alive.  She liked the jalepeno cheese from the MRE’s.  

He wished she were here.  He could use her shooting skills right now.  She would have out shot anyone in his platoon.  Treble and Bass were the names of her competition guns.  Her shotgun was called “Heavy Metal.” 

He didn’t have a name for his gun.  It needed a name.  He always used to sing that song from Nacho Libre, the song about the nun, Encarnacion.  It was a horrible name and not very catchy, but he christened his M4 “Encarnacion.”

They were song on the road again.  He needed to distract people from the discomfort of a long march. 

“Anyone name their gun yet?”  He asked aloud. 

“Bertha,” Adam said.

“Jezebel,” Spencer said.

“Sweet Pea,” Rebekah said.

“I don’t think I’ll do that,” Jennifer said. 

“Mulan,” Lisa said. 

“Come on now, Alex.  What’s yours?” Adam asked.

“Encarnacion.”

He proceeded to tell the story of why, but they still thought it was a lame name. 

“It’s to remember my sister, guys,” he said with a smile so they’d know he wasn’t actually upset. 

“You never know, she could still be alive,” Jennifer said.

“The odds aren’t exactly in my favor,” Alex said. 

“There’s always hope,” Jennifer said.

“Not this time,” he said.

The others began talking about other things and he didn’t notice Lisa walking up beside him. 

“I know what you feel.  I wonder about family in China. Maybe some of them still alive.”

“I don’t think either of us will ever find out.  We’ll never travel that far again.  The world has ended and now we just have to find a quiet place to survive and build a new life.  Maybe we should forget the old world.”

“No, I don’t think so.  I think it’s good to remember ancestors. Also, we forget, we make same mistakes.”

“I’m sure I’ll make all new ones.”