Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

Update ...

2011-11-14T10:46:00.001-08:00

The following stories are now complete:
A Will To Survive
Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men
Forsaken Harvest (completed as of 11/14/11)
Over the Mountain and Through the Fire
This Is Me Surviving

Stories Currently in Progress:
All Roads Lead Somewhere
Carry On
Gurl
Mom's Journal of the Zombie Years
To All Things There Is A Season
Il Agita Di Amore
And the Geek Will Inherit the Earth

I plan on a very short break and then will begin to try and complete another story. I hope to have at least two more completed before the end of the year.

Chapter Twenty

2010-06-14T15:04:00.001-07:00

Chapter 20

Surreal. That’s the only way to describe this life I’m leading. It has taken me some time to … to grasp it all, to make sense of how I’ve gotten here. The fire is crackling in the grate, a welcome change from what … well, better to tell it from where I left off or I’m sure to leave something out and nothing will make sense and making sense is challenging enough for me even on my good days it seems.

I couldn’t get out of the cave. The rock slide had closed off the main entrance and the emergency exit was nothing more than a crevice. I chipped away the sharpest edges but eventually even that wasn’t enough to let me slide or wiggle through the narrow space. I guess I was some where around eight months along when I become sealed in. If not for the dogs I probably would have gone stark raving made. Even with them I was so close to the edge of true madness that hair’s width makes little difference. The only thing I get to do is say I know the difference and while I was slightly mad I wasn’t completely mad. Small comfort but I was left being grateful for small comforts.

It took a while to get used to the bunker after I first arrived but there was such a feeling of size to the place, not to mention all of the other people, that true claustrophobia was never a problem. It hadn’t really been a problem with the cave, at least not until that point. It was like a prison.

I knew that the world existed. Light told me when it was day and a lack of it told me when it was night … or that it was storming. But I could not see the outside; the bend in the crevice prevented me from seeing even the tiniest sliver of sky. I would get whiffs of what was out beyond my jail – the smell of fresh air, pine boughs and cedar that the dogs would sometimes drag in to play with, damp earth when it actually rained instead of snowing. And once, a frighteningly musky odor that frightened the dogs and raised all of our hackles.

Within a week I of being unable to get out I could already feel myself deteriorating and by two weeks I was well and truly experiencing moments of delusion. I don’t remember things too clearly. The firewood, even the scraps of barks buried under the dirt in the corners of the room, got used up. I tried to burn some of the broken furniture but the smoke was toxic and choked me. I did burn the table and chairs that Donovan had made from fresh wood but I despised every little spark of light and heat those fires gave off. I couldn’t bring myself to burn the bed itself nor could I burn the little curio cabinet he had built me to hold the few keepsakes that I still owned or had found here and there and claimed as my own but eventually even that source of wood ran out. That left me eating what little fresh food came out of the garden boxes but even that stopped when I couldn’t get the batteries to charge.

I figured out how to hood up the bicycle generator with surprisingly little trouble. The problem was that I expended more energy charging the batteries than I got benefit from whatever I used the batteries for. And when it started causing me cramps and … well … pain in private places … I was forced to stop whether I wanted to or not.

I did have water or I would have perished and the baby inside me too. I ate my meals raw. Before the wood ran out the dogs brought me the occasional meal but I couldn’t force myself to eat things raw. I couldn’t. Not that the animals looked too healthy, some taken from the dens where they must have been hibernating.

My meals were uncooked. The dried, smoked meat wasn’t bad but I had to ration myself to smaller and smaller portions. I eventually learned to survive on bean sprouts, jerky, and a little dried fruit ground up with a little cornmeal. Milk made from the little dried milk that was left was my one and only dairy product and was, unluckily for me, the only thing I seemed to truly crave towards the end. As for the rest of it, it was all I could do to choke down a meal.

I started to hallucinate. I talked to people who weren’t there. I saw things that never existed. Donovan and my parents played prominent roles in the wacked out stage productions my brain put on. It was easier for me to remember that it was impossible for my parents to be there than it was for me to bring myself back around when I was “talking to Donovan.” In fact, I even came around realizing I was talking to Donovan about my anxiety or hallucinating about my parents. That was a true Twilight Zone moment for me.

I was scared but eventually depression too over, eclipsing all but my most basic survival instincts. My due date – at least the one that I set as a goal after working the 40 week calendar out to the best of my ability – came and went. I had been looking forward to it, believing after the baby was born I’d be able to escape.

I wondered if the cave would be my mausoleum. I was sick; mentally and physically though I was not aware of exactly how ill I was. No light, no mirror, and no desire to see myself because that would only reinforce that I was the only human being around. I hated and loved my hallucinations for this very reason. I hated them because they showed me I was ill and I loved them because they helped me to escape that knowledge and the fear it engendered.

I think that day I finally had just had enough and gave up. The comfort of being able to read my Bible had long ago slipped from my mind. The thin light that came from the crevice wasn’t really enough to read by anyway. But on that day, something … something broke inside me.

Maybe it was something that had been worn away at for a long time and it finally just gave or maybe it was just the current situation that had caused the fragility. Maybe it was a forewarning of things that were coming or … or maybe it was my last shot at trying to protect myself. Did the wall collapse or did I put the last brick in place? I’m not sure which metaphor is more correct. Either way I sat beside the crevice watching the barely there light fade out of existence one more time.

I remember crying and then I must have fall asleep on the cave floor, exhausted beyond commonsense. I came to myself when an unignorable wave of nausea swept over me. I puked what little I had eaten all down my front. Disoriented and detached I stood to go change when I noticed my back hurt. What little I thought about it I put down to falling asleep against cold rock.

My consciousness was spotty for I don’t know how long. I would dress and undress, wrap myself in a blanket and sit down in front of what I knew was the dead fire grate though I could see it. I would get fully dressed as if I was going out until I remember I couldn’t. Sometimes my face was wet with tears and sometimes it was dry and feverish.

Through those times there were moments of near lucidity where I realized my back pain was growing worse, so bad in fact that the dogs were picking up on it and acting strange. They’d come to me and back and go outside and bark. Then a pain like no other I’d ever felt ripped into me leaving me gasping.

I could find no relief from the pain. I stood. I sat. I walked around bumping into things in the dark. I rocked on all fours, sometimes I could catch myself mumbling, begging for whatever it was to stop. Eventually I simply collapsed in the dark beside the bed, unable to even get off the rug that I knew was filthy because it smelled strongly of dirty boots and wet dogs.

The dogs in question kept whining and running around me and then out of the room. They were crashing around and I tried to tell them to stop but when I opened my mouth all that came out was a horrific shriek as a tearing burn tore through me.

That’s when I must have completely disconnected. Instinctively I knew something was wrong. Fury tore through me even more hotly than the pain. It wasn’t fair. I’d lost my parents. I’d lost my innocence and my future. I’d lost my belief in humanity. I’d lost Donovan. Was I to lose the baby now too? Was I to die here, alone, and in pain?

What had been the point of me ever drawing my first breath on this Earth? Why save me in the bunker, suffering that social degradation, only to leave me in the cave, in the dark, to shrivel like a mummy to be found by some future archaeologist? What purpose was there in that?! I demanded that God give me an answer but none came that I could decipher … at least not then, but I think I’m beginning to understand now.

Another pain ripped through me and another scream was ripped out of me. I thought I was dying. The dogs barked, ran out of the room only to run back in and then run back out yet again. The world was darkening beyond the dark that already pressed against my eyes.

And then there was a light. A harsh but beautiful glow that kept drawing closer, getting bigger. I heard voices, at first a welcomed distraction. I thought, “The pain is almost over. The loneliness is almost at an end. The dark is almost gone. I’ll be with my parents and Donovan for real and not in some dream world. They must be waiting for me on the other side. Is that them calling me?”

But then another pain overwhelmed me and so did confusion. The hum of voices turned into a cacophony that shattered my protective barriers against reality. I felt like I was being tugged between Heaven and Hell, a rag doll to be screamed at on one end and clawed at on the other. I was disoriented, but not so muddled that I knew it wasn’t supposed to be happening the way it was playing out. The Devil was out to do something that wasn’t supposed to be done. I wasn’t going to let him have my baby, but I thought the only way for me to win was to fight them all.

I screamed that no one was going to take my baby. I kicked, I bit, I slapped and swung my arms with strength I didn’t know I had left in me. But eventually there wasn’t strength enough for what I had to do. Cobwebs filled my ears. I couldn’t breathe. My heart felt like it was giving out.

“Emma! My God … Emma!”

Someone was calling my name … in the name of God no less. I looked up to see a thin, almost frail looking man with eyes that stayed just out of memory. I knew I should know those eyes but I couldn’t focus enough. Things kept sliding away.

“Get Bennington! Now!” A baritone voice ordered answered by a tenor “Sir, the walls are too thick the …”

“Then send a runner man! Move! Start using your head, we haven’t got time to wait around!”

I felt hands … strong and callused hands trying to be gentle … lifting me onto the bed, away from the smelly rug that I had only made worse with my sweat and who knows what else.

The pain continued and so did that first voice. “Emma! Emma! Stay with me. My God please! Where’s Bennington?! A baby?! She’s been … here … all this time … you bastards! If you had let me go like I …”

“Easy man. The storms were too bad. In the condition you were in you would have died less than a day out. I told you as soon as we could cobble one of the birds back to life we’d bring you back whether you were healthy enough for it or not. I kept my word.”

“Damn you all! Damn you all for this!!”

There was a scuffling and more barks.

“Dogs?! What the …” Then silence and the voice so flustered at first suddenly cracked with authority. “What are you all doing just standing there?! Get some light in here. Get a fire started. Move, let me … hold her or she’s going to flail off the bed.”

“Bennington! What’s …”

“Give me a chance to see old man. Is this your woman? The one you’ve been trying to sneak out after?”

“Rot in …”

“Shut up!!” the voice roared getting everyone’s attention immediately and calming the almost hysteric quality to all of the male voices surrounding me. “I can’t hear a blasted thing with everyone shouting in here! Try and get her to be still. I’ll have to examine … hey you idiots … move. It might have been a while since you saw a pregnant woman but you can manage to give her a little privacy right? Leave her some dignity? This isn’t a girly show you know. Hold her; this isn’t going to be pleasant. What I wouldn’t give for a nurse beside hairy old McDermott the Veternarian.”

More pain and I fought the best I could but I simply couldn’t escape. “Stop hurting her damnit!”

“If you think I want to I can assure you friend that I do not. First pregnant woman I’ve seen in years and …” the voice of authority suddenly had a voice that cracked. “I don’t have a choice. And it is going to get worse before it gets better. It looks like the baby is breach.”

I knew what that meant. It meant the end; at least for me. Breach births meant Caesarians and there was no way I would survive it. Not under the existing conditions.

“I can’t tell it if is a frank or complete breech, she’s fighting me too much during the exam.”

The words flowed over me. I couldn’t understand what they were saying any longer but I knew I had a choice to make. With what turned out to be my last lucid words for a long time I said, “Save … the … baby. I … I don’t … just … save the … baby. Do whatever … just … save …”

That was the clearest thing I remember for a long time. It isn’t that I wasn’t awake because they said I continued to make noises in my delirium, but what constitutes the real me took a much needed vacation. Oh, I think I sort of remember bits and pieces here and there but whether that is some trick my mind is playing on me after I heard the tale or if I truly am remembering I’ll probably never know for sure.

Hands doing painful things to my abdomen. “She only has a 50-50 chance … at best. I’ve never done an ECV at this late stage. You know I’ll do what I can … for both of them … but right now the baby stands a better chance than she does.”

A change in the pressure down there. It didn’t go away but it seemed to have more purpose to it. The eyes that never seemed to leave mine, begging both me and God to not to give up, to not let him have come this far, this close, only to lose everything that ever meant anything. He swore he’d take my place if God needed a sacrifice.

Encouraging words from the other voices and a few that, even in my state, almost made me laugh and cry at the same time. “You can do it girly. You … oh-oh, someone grab Darnall, he don’t look so good, you’d think he’s never seen a baby getting borned before. I thought his wife had four of ‘em.”

A quiet snicker said, “Them’s all step chilrun. He bain’t never had none of his own. Ooo, she’s gonna blow purt soon. Look it her face.”

“Her face? Look it her man’s. If she don’t blow soon he will.”

It did feel like I was about to blow. Pressure built and built and built and with a final shriek like a tea kettle or a steam engine the worst of it was over. But I was spent beyond all sensibility.

I remember a sensation of tugging and pulling and then after a while being moved again and wrapped in layer upon layer of blankets. I remember the sensation of lying on something impossibly stiff and the cold. I remember the cold seeping through to me despite all my layers. I couldn’t seem to stop shaking and then I did stop and that seemed to worry the voices even more.

But the first thing I can say that I really and truly remember was the blasted beeping. It was a constant annoyance that never seemed to end. I woke up just so I could tell someone to turn the awful noise off.

“If that thing beeps one more time,” I croaked. “If it beeps one more time I’m going to find it and stomp it into oblivion.”

There was a weird noise like someone had fallen out of a chair. I heard the dogs yelp as well. I found out I had startled him so bad he tipped the chair back too far and it had crashed backwards, taking him with it and nearly landing on the dogs who had been packed in a box and brought back along with me and the baby.

I was fighting to open my eyes and when I finally managed it I saw the eyes that I’d been struggling to remember since the first time I’d seen them.

I managed to say, my voice still a hoarse whisper, “Donovan? What are you doing in this part of hell? You shouldn’t be here.”

“Emma? Emma? Are you awake?”

“I hope not because I’m so totally not … not …” Then with almost audible clicks my memories were coming back. “My baby … my baby … my … !!!”

“Mr. Donovan!” a voice scolded from the doorway. “You were supposed to hit the call button as soon as she awoke!”

“Donovan?!” I whimpered. “Donovan?!! The baby!”

“Shhh! Shhh! Don’t move around so much, they think you can still …”

I was not listening. It was too much. Donovan. Here. Or me where ever Donovan was. Where ever here was. The baby. I was having a hard time stringing things together.

“Excuse me … Miss … you need to …” A woman in white that had been wash so many times it was a soft gray was trying to calm me down but I wasn’t the least in the mood.

Then I got a chance to put a face to another voice I remembered. “Emma! Listen to me. I’m Dr. Bennington. The baby … your baby … is in the next room in the incubation crib. She’s a little small, has a little jaundice, as soon as you calm down we’ll get the two of you together. Donovan, don’t just stand there looking helpless man. We need to calm her down before she starts bleeding again.”

Then, “Emma … Emma … listen to me. She’s perfect. Head full of impossibly black hair. Babies are supposed to be bald as cue balls but not our little girl. She has all her fingers and toes. And her mother’s moodiness. She’s particular about who handles her and isn’t afraid to say so. Emma … come on Sugar … you’re tearing my heart out … I promise … on my life … calm down and Bennington will roll the crib in here.”

I didn’t care if I was folding to blackmail, I would have done anything to see my baby breathing at that moment.

Dr. Bennington said, “Now I’m going to take a few vitals while Mrs. Hurley rolls the baby in here and …”

“Doctor!”

“Mrs. Hurley, I promised Emma that if she calmed down she could see the baby and that is exactly what is going to happen. Have I made myself clear?”

A disbelieving sniff from the old bat was the only response she gave before going out. I watched the door with a feverish focus, refusing to answer any questions. And then … then …

Even now I can’t help tearing up remembering the first time I saw her. I looked at Donovan. “You … you came back. I thought … thought …”

“Not soon enough Emma. I tried but … but …”

“You came when I needed you to. Is she really … really …”

“Yeah. Really noisy. Really fussy. Really smelly sometimes. And really the most beautiful …” he voice broke. “She’s really here. We’re really … I’m sorry Emma. I didn’t know … I didn’t know …” And he started to sob. Donovan. My Donovan. The man who was tough as stainless steel. The man who never got tired. The man who never gave up. That man laid his head down and sobbed like a baby, holding me.

I looked around and then startled as they started to roll the bassinet back out of the room. “Easy Emma. She’s full term but small. Her lungs are good but she still needs some extra special care. Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow, we’ll bring the two of you together for a little more quality time. The sooner the better, but for now you are both too fragile.”

Donovan was still insensible so I was left asking this stranger what happened. “I … I’m still pretty … where are we?”

“Well, at least you started with an easy question and one I can answer without hesitation. You are in a bunker.”

My doubt and confusion must have showed on my face. “I know. Donovan has told me that the one that you two occupied originally was run more like a military base. Most of the military staff we were expected to get never showed before we were forced to close the doors. We do have some military in our population but mostly just veterans that had been living in the surrounding area.”

“I …”

“We had a lot of empty space. A small town supplied a lot of the labor to build this place. We took in as many as could get here - lock, stock, and barrel – before the blast doors were closed. It was hard for a while, not everyone was happy that they made the decision to try and live once they saw the aftermath. We had a mutiny about six months after Impact Day; it changed things. The scientist bigwigs that originally made up the administrative personnel lost most of their clout. They’re still here but their wings are clipped and they stick to the work that got them here in the first place … atmospheric research, geomagnetic applications, and other next to useless rubbish like that.”

“Don’t sound like … sound like …” I stopped on a dry hack.

“Emma. Honey. Ben … can she have some ice chips?”

“Yeah, I don’t see what not. No fluids yet until we make sure we aren’t going to have to sedate her again.”

I stiffened at the perceived threat.

“Easy. It isn’t the goal but you must have been in labor a long time. You lost a lot of blood. And you came in anemic. We’ve had a hard time getting it under control. So far so good. I didn’t want to have to do a hysterectomy, especially in your condition. Give us a bit of cooperation from here on out and you should do all right … in time.”

Donovan fed me ice chips while both the men continued the story. They finally reconnected with the other bunkers but didn’t want to have much to do with them, fearing a takeover and return to the old administration which had been inefficient and tyrannical.

“We kept to ourselves as much as possible but no man is an island and neither is a bunker. Eventually the supplies ran low or started to go bad. Eventually the doors had to open. Eventually you find you need those other people as much as you needed them to stay away before.”

Donovan said, “Our group thought this bunker had been lost or infiltrated somehow so never factored them into the plan to disperse our people once our bunker started flooding.” He couldn’t seem to stop touching me and frankly I didn’t mind at all. His hands, his eyes, where ever they touched it made me feel more and more alive and in the here and now.

Bennington continued. “Things changed once we got the birds flying. We felt we had edge enough that we could afford to make contact with the outside world again. Only by then … by then there wasn’t much outside world left to contact. The environmental changes had been rough, not only on Earth but on her inhabitants. Most of the food that would have been salvageable in the beginning was no longer so … the cold and time had done its work, as had the roving bands of humans that were trying to live despite the cold and harsh realities. Game had been all hunted out or starved out by the changes in the natural order of things.”

“Emma, there are still some secure communities outside of the bunkers but … but not all of them are … there are some sick people that survived the end of the world. Resources are scarce and salvagers have to go further and further afield from their home bases to find anything worth the trouble and danger of travelling. And even in some of the communities that didn’t start out with problems … a lot of civilization has been lost. Life is harsh. In some places it has devolved into … into …”

Bennington finished his sentence, “a combination of the Dark Ages and the Inquisition on steroids.”

Donovan grunted, making me smile.

“What?” he asked me, worried that I was losing my grip on reality again.

“You still sound like a caveman when you do that.” A tear slipped down my face as emotions threatened to overwhelm me.

“Donovan, she needs to rest. You can answer her other questions later. Just try and keep her calm and she’ll likely slip off into sleep without any drugs. I’d prefer her to get more natural rest than what she’s had.”

And I did. I didn’t appreciate having the man talk like I was a small child or absent from the room but he was right. I was in and out of it for the next few days. They brought the baby whenever I asked but didn’t always leave her as long as I wanted. But we did get to spend quality time together, all three of us. Contrary to everyone’s concerns, I was able to breastfeed and the sometimes less than gentle contractions it caused didn’t start me hemorrhaging again. In fact it actually helped and eventually I stopped bleeding all together and they let me sit up at first and then finally get out of the bed all together. It was only into a wheelchair for a short spin up and down the empty halls of the medical wing but I took it since it was all I was going to get.

“Donovan?”

“Yeah?”

“Where is everyone?”

“Hmm? Oh … Dr. Bennington has the ward on lock down.”

“Lock down! Why? Are we prisoners?!” I asked, immediately reminded of my old life in the other bunker.

“Whoa! Don’t get over excited or he’ll have my head. No, we aren’t prisoners. Too many people were coming and going, trying to find out what was going on.”

“Why?”

“You’re the first woman to give birth since the bomb doors were closed.”

“I’m the … they don’t have other women here? Or a … you know … the different … levels?” I asked still trying to stem my disbelief of what I’d just learned.

“No, that’s one of the things that was abolished during the mutiny. No, Bennington still isn’t sure … he’s just a country doctor thrown into the middle of all of this … he thinks … I’m not sure if I can explain it the way he does. He says people were never meant to be hobbits living under ground. Our bodies require certain amounts of sunlight, require the changing from day to night, need the changing of the seasons whether they are noticeable to the human eye or not. Take it away and … the natural cycles go haywire or something. Add the stress of the Impact and the heavy amount of work that everyone had to do to stay alive around here. Women stopped … you know … menstruating and Bennington said that some of the men’s sperm counts went way down when he realized enough to start asking questions and running tests. Plus, a lot of the adults in the crowd they wound up with were either out of what he called ‘optimal breeding age’ or had had their tubes tied or the men had had vasectomies. But from what they’ve heard and what they witnessed in the few ‘outside communities’ they’ve made contact with the same thing holds true. The birth rate has been severely suppressed.”

“Still? It’s been so long … years … and still?”

“Yeah. Either we got lucky … Emma, I’m … I’m sorry … I …”

“Not again Donovan, we’ve been through this. It had to have been one of the last couple of times we … you know … and it was a while before I realized what was happening. You did try and come back. And I still don’t know all the details, you won’t tell me.”

“I … I’m not ready to talk about it Emma. I … I just …”

“All right. Don’t flip a switch. Just stop coming apart every time it comes up. You taught me enough that I survived until you could get back. That is all I’m choosing to remember about it.”

“Emma …”

“I mean it,” I said as I did something I never seemed to tire of doing. I ran my hand down his still too thin cheek, feeling the grooves of deep lines of suffering that spoke of his sincerity and depth of feeling on the subject.

Donovan was a changed man. He limped, sometimes badly. Sometimes he dragged his foot and pain would give his face a gray undertone. What little youth he had still claimed seemed to be completely gone. White liberally sprinkled his hair and his face when he left it grizzled.

I noted to myself even the hair on his chest was sprinkled with gray. I saw it when Bennington had made him take his shirt off for a checkup. I was shocked at how little meat was one his bones. His ribs showed and I could see his backbone nearly all the way down. Whatever had overtaken Donovan had left its mark … and apparently in more than just physical ways. For instance, as protective has he had been he’d never lied to me … if nothing, he’d always been brutally honest. No matter what it was he gave me credit for at least earning a chance to try and face it. I found out though he now feared I was too fragile and that he needed to bear the burden of it all … like it was some kind of ridiculous penance.

The day after my wheel chair excursion I was dozing after having fed the baby. We still hadn’t given her a name. She was just our baby and we hadn’t found a need to name her yet. “Baby” was still good enough.

I woke up thinking Donovan had come back and looked up, seeing a stranger … a stranger who wasn’t really a stranger … and I screamed. I don’t really know why. It was … I can’t describe it … part of me thought my hallucinations had returned … hallucinations that I hadn’t yet confessed to having.

I must have fainted. I came to in Donovan’s arms, “Emma! Emma, it’s all right. I’m right here.”

“Donovan … I saw … I … I mean I thought … I thought I saw …” I blubbered.

“It’s all right Sugar. Bennington threw him out. No one is going to let him hurt you.”

“Let him … ? Are … are you telling me … I wasn’t just … I wasn’t seeing things? Moshe was here? Here?!”

“Easy. Calm down.”

“Don’t you tell me to calm down you … you … you Neanderthal! You tell me what is going on and you tell me right now!!”

Bennington stuck his head around the door and grinned. “Whooey son … when my wife used to get like that I did exactly what she told me or I lit out for a while … a good long while … until she calmed down.”

Donovan replied something rude then walked over and shut the door in his face. I could hear the doctor laughing on the other side before walking away. I however wasn’t laughing.

“Donovan …” I didn’t know what I was going to say. I didn’t really know how I felt. Angry for sure but also hurt and something else too.

“I wanted you to be stronger before you had to deal with this.”

“Deal with what?”

“With … with that boy you used to like being here.”

“With what boy that I … you can’t be telling me after everything you’re actually acting … Donovan I swear I am going to clunk you over the head with this food tray!”

I was looking for a fight but I didn’t get one. Donovan just looked at me. And then what did that throwback do? He grinned and kissed me. Not the gentle and hesitant pecks on my head or cheek that he’d been giving me but a teeth rattling kiss the likes of which I hadn’t experienced with anyone else and not since he’d disappeared all those months ago.

I was left nearly breathless but I still managed to gasp, “Out with it. I feel like I’m living some ridiculous dream sequence in a story. And … and that terrifies me Donovan. If I’m hallucinating then you … and the baby …” I was scaring myself silly and couldn’t seem to stop it.

“Whoa. Hey now. Look at me Girl. I …” then he sighed and took another breath. “I don’t care how it sounds Emma but … your mine. He can’t have you. But … I’m not the man I was. I’m … I’m broken. My health. My body. Sometimes … Emma, for a while there even my mind was betraying me.”

I looked at him and saw how serious he was. Then I asked him quietly, “Do you think you’re alone?”

“Huh?”

“Do you think you’re alone in being broken?”

Donovan just shook his head. “Emma … Emma … you don’t understand.”

But I did and I was determined to prove it. “Oh yes I do. I … I have a confession. The shape you … the shape you found me in? It … it wasn’t just because of the labor. I’d been … I’d been losing it for a while. Right after you first disappeared it was bad. Then I got better … or I think I did. But then when I got stuck … I couldn’t get out of the cave Donovan. I was too big. It felt like … like … I was trapped and buried by some mad man. I was … I was a prisoner again Donavon, just like back in the Bunker. There were places I couldn’t go, things that were out of my reach and being kept from me. Then the wood ran out and I couldn’t … there was no light except the little bit that came from the crevice … and then the food and … I lost it Donovan. I was talking to people that weren’t there. Seeing things that weren’t there. Impossible things that … I was three-quarters crazy. I don’t know how else to describe what it was.”

“Ben … he says your condition was due to was nutritional imbalances and stress.”

“He can call it that if he wants to but I have to be honest … at least with myself and with you … I was … I was more crazy than not and if you hadn’t come I would have been … all the way crazy or dead. That is a fact that there is no denying.”

I was shaking, wondering if he would turn away from me in disgust. Instead he wrapped me in his arms and made his own confession. “I … Emma, I killed a man trying to get out of here. They guy had been egging me on for about a week, tearing me up inside with his accusations and threats since I was an outsider, saying it was my fault they lost someone when their helicopter crash landed after being damaged in the storm they were trying to outrun after they picked me up. The guy they lost was his brother. I didn’t know it at the time or I might have ignored him more. He ‘let’ me escape and then took a shot at me. They didn’t know what my background was. I didn’t even hesitate. He was the enemy. Someone clocked me from behind and I woke up locked up in what they called a jail cell but that was closer to a hotel room. It was a long time before … before they’d even listen to me again. That … that was Moshe’s doing.”

“He got them to listen to you?”

“No, the opposite. I know he’s special to you and …”

“Say that one more time and I will clunk you. Moshe is … he’s part of my past … a dream that died at his own hands … and the only thing he has served in my present so far is as a nightmare. Now tell me and spill whatever the poison is that has been eating you up.”

That got me a look and then a sigh that was almost a groan. “I … I deserved some of what I got. I fought every attempt people made to befriend me. I refused to trust anyone. I was a wild man, still sick from nearly dying …”

“Nearly dying?!!”

“Shhhh. Ben will be in here again and you won’t get your answers … and you’ll wake the baby.” I calmed down but only on the outside. Finally he continued, “I lost a lot of blood Emma. It isn’t like it used to be where you could just call a blood bank and get what you needed. You lose blood, there are no transfusions, your body has to replace it on its own. On top of it, all the fighting I did re-opened the wound repeatedly. Ben threatened to shackle me to the bed if I didn’t knock it off. Eventually I got some kind of infection and it … it nearly killed me … quicker than the original wound had. I got so sick it wasn’t a matter of me deciding whether I was going to accept anyone’s help or not, I was just too weak to fight them off.”

I remember how hard it had been for him to accept even my limited assistance when he’d been shot in the bunker. It must have come close to destroying him to be so sick he couldn’t even fend off the good intensions of the staff that had been trying to take care of him.

He continued, “I was completely broken. I had nothing left. I knew I couldn’t get to you but that didn’t stop me from wanting to. I practically howled at the moon when I had the energy. And then when everything was gone, nearly my life, I started praying. I’d beg God every waking moment that you’d hold on until I could get back to you. I’d beg him to protect you until I could. Ben says that I even prayed in my sleep sometimes. The nights I didn’t fall into an exhausted sleep after praying were racked by nightmares of what could be happening to you. I was a basket case and most everyone avoided me unless forced to take their turn being my watcher or caregiver. I’m better now but … but you see what I’ve been reduced to.”

“But where does Moshe fit into this? And … and … what about the rest of the family?” I asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

“They’re parents … they … they died … right after the mutiny. Some kind of fever went through the entire bunker. Ben thinks it was released by those in the administrative wing … like biological warfare … only it got out of hand when it got into the ventilation system. Sarah used to visit me until Moshe found out how often she was doing it. We used to talk about you a lot.”

“Sarah … Sarah is here?” I couldn’t believe it. “Has … has she tried to see me? Why haven’t I seen her?”

“I don’t know Honey. Ben has kept everyone away. There is bad blood between the old administrators and the rest of the population. I think Ben would be OK with it … his son and Sarah … well, I think there is some kind of stupid Romeo and Juliet thing going on. If Moshe wasn’t such a … well, if Moshe would stay out of things, but he keeps the old feud alive every chance he gets.”

“Moshe? That just … doesn’t compute. He was so laid back. But … but it turns out I didn’t know him as well as I thought. He …”

I stopped talking, trying to reconcile yet again the boy that I had known with the man that had betrayed me. Then I heard, “Emma! Emma! Are you all right? Are they treating you all right? I’m trying to get help to you! Don’t give up!!” The voice bellowed down the hallway, echoing through the empty hospital offices and exam rooms.

“What on Earth?” I asked of no one and expecting no answer. “Donovan, help me out of this bed. This is just too … too ridiculous. It is like one of those impossibly long and convoluted Russian novels they used to make us read in European Lit. I hated those stupid melodramas.”

“Emma, be reasonable.” As soon as he said it Donovan knew he’d said the only thing guaranteed to make me be the exact opposite. “Oh for Pete’s Sake. Here, sit in the wheelchair. But if he looks at you too hard I refuse to promise not to do my best to deck him.”

This time I was the one to grunt. Donovan rolled me out to where Dr. Bennington was quickly running out of patience.

“Moshe! That … is … enough.” If I was going to face him I was going to be the one on the offensive and try and keep the upper hand.

“Emma! Oh Emma! I’ve been so worried. I …”

“Moshe,” I said in a deadly calm voice that startled the man he’d become into silence. “Please do not try your old tricks with me. I’m not your mother or any of the teachers in highschool. I’m not even your sister even though I used to pretend I was. I was just the little friend … little expendable friend … of your real sister. The little orphan your parents took in.”

“Emma, don’t … you don’t understand … I … I …”

“No Moshe, I don’t understand. I don’t understand how you could do that to me, condemn me to a life that was meant to leave me living little better than a harlot … a “comfort girl” like in World War 2. You know what I’m talking about so don’t deny it.”

“It was … it was … it didn’t wind up how I’d meant it to Emma. You … I paid someone to … you were supposed to come here. You … you were supposed to be mine.”

My eyebrows disappeared into my hairline. “I was supposed to be what?” I could feel my anger boiling over and I could feel Donovan’s anger rolling on my behalf as well. I put my hand over his where it rested on my shoulder, trying to calm us both.

“Look, things just … they just fell apart. And these local yokels still don’t understand the magnitude …”

At that I could see a pulse start up in Dr. Bennington’s temple. “Moshe, take responsibility for your own actions. You all but sold me into slavery. Your rationalization is immaterial. And for your information I would never have been yours. You were my friend Moshe and when you did what you did you destroyed any chance you had of ever making it more than that. You destroyed our friendship period. My trust in anything you say has been permanently compromised.”

Shocked that he was unable to manipulate me, Moshe got nasty. “Oh, and you picked this broken down has been.”

“Actually Moshe, the relationship I have with this man is none of your business and will never be any of your business. Suffice it to say he is the father of my child and I am more than content to spend whatever time we have left on this Earth with him and only with him.”

“And you think he feels the same way? Let me tell you something …”

“That’s enough,” Donovan growled.

“No, it’s not. She has the right to know. I’m ashamed that it brings my own sister’s behavior into question …”

Donovan repeated, “I said that’s enough!”

“Oh yeah? And what are you going to do about it? You’re no better than an old man. Look at you. You’re pathetic. How are you supposed to protect, much less provide, for Emma and her child? I’m forced to assume it is your child I suppose. And what do you think she is going to say when she finds out …”

Donovan tried to step around me and take a swing at Moshe as he had promised he would but Moshe was right in one respect, Donovan wasn’t the man he used to be. His leg gave out and he half fell before catching himself nearly turning the wheelchair over.

I saw the shame on Donovan’s face, in his eyes, nearly radiating from his soul and something clicked. “Moshe, I hope you are hearing me right now because I am about to tell you a deep truth you should have had the sense to realize long ago. Yes, Donovan isn’t as strong as he was … not physically. But he never stopped trying to come back to me. Never. No matter what fate threw at him he never stopped trying. It nearly killed him … and he did have to kill another man in the pursuit of his return to me. He promised me that I could always trust him and he has never … never let me down. He’s never lied to me. He’s never betrayed me. He protected me. And when he thought his protection was actually handicapping me he taught me to fend for myself. He may be rough. He may be crude at times. But he has always been honest. And he never gave up on me. Never. No matter what it cost him … and it nearly cost him his life.”

Moshe tried to open his mouth and I said, “Shut … up. I’m not finished. Here’s the part you need to understand … need to take inside yourself so that perhaps you can save yourself from yourself. Even broken Donovan is more of a man than you have ever been, more of a man than you are ever likely to be. And while he may be broken right now, one day he’ll be stronger and when that day comes if you so much as look at me cross ways it better be from a long distance away because I can guarantee he’ll rip your spine out of your back. And what’s more … I’ll stand there and let him.”

Moshe looked at me with disgust, like I was a slug that he’d stepped on. “You’re no longer the girl you used to be Emma. I can’t believe you would ever sink as far as you’ve sunk. You once had standards and common sense. But of course this … this broken loser … he manipulated Sarah as well. She saw through him in time though, thank God. She …”

“I can talk for myself Brother.”

I turned my head. Sarah was no longer a girl anymore than I was but time had been kinder to her. I could still see the innocence in her eyes that my own would be forever void of.

“Emma … please … I didn’t know … I’m … I’m so sorry.”

And it was just like when we were kids and one of us had wronged the other by some stupid act. We always made up. Sometimes it was harder than others but eventually we always made up. And this time it was my choice and I opened my arms and we fell together laughing and crying like we always had, relieved to have the past behind us.

“Emma … nothing happened. I swear it.”

“Oh. Is that what Moshe was trying to say? Well, of course nothing happened … at least not like Moshe is trying to say. You’d drive Donovan nuts and he’d positively horrify you.” When I said it and then got a look on their faces I couldn’t help but start laughing.

“Emma!” Moshe exclaimed, giving it one last try. “Don’t let them fool you.”

“Fool me? You are the fool Moshe. I don’t know what has happened to you. I don’t even know when it happened. But until you cut out whatever cancer is eating at your soul you are never going to find the peace to make something of this new life because you’ve got to realize the old one is never coming back. “ I turned in the wheelchair and looked up at Donovan who had regained his footing. “Take me back to my room Donovan. I’ve had enough of this. Please.”

I grabbed Sarah’s hand and all three of us went back down the corridor to my room. The baby was just beginning to get fussy and while I fed her the three of us talked. The dogs finding a soft touch in Sarah who’d never been able to resist puppy dog eyes or itchy bellies. Soon however both Donovan and I needed to rest so Sarah left, promising to come back another time. And she did, many more times.

As the days went by both Donovan and I came to feel claustrophobic. We felt the cold stares of most of the population in this bunker, of the people who feared we’d bring unwanted change into their lives. We just wanted to go home. The home we had made for ourselves. Dr. Bennington tried to talk us out of it. “People will warm up to you, just give it more time. Neither of you are up for surviving out there. You know more than most just how tough things can be outside of the bunkers. And what will you do for supplies?”

Donovan answered, “Ben, we appreciate all you’ve done for us but even our two mouths are a strain on the resources of your bunker. You’ve heard the grumbling. People want us on the work teams or gone. Charity is dead.”

“Donovan,” I said reprovingly after his harsh words. “Look Dr. Bennington, like he said, we appreciate all you’ve done but … but it is time. Our life isn’t here. We escaped this life once only because we had no choice. This time we want to leave of our own accord, before things get any more … difficult.”

“Well … well, maybe I can’t requisition some supplies, even a couple of days worth would …”

“No,” Donovan said adamant. “It will cause you too much trouble and things feel like a powder keg as it is.”

A sharp expletive left the good doctor’s lips. “I won’t deny it. Another season of change is coming. Some folks … well, they’ve had enough of bunker life and seeing that you made it … maybe it is for the best but it isn’t going to be an easy transition for our population. And some of the people that want to go are just not going to survive and …” He finally shook his head in resignation. “I know they plan another flight. I’ll see what I can do.”

The hardest part was saying good bye to Sarah. “Do you have to go? It seems that we’ve only just …” She was crying and couldn’t finish.

“Sarah, you have a life here. My life is out there. Remember how it was in college?”

“In college we could pick up a phone. Or text. Or email. Now, you’ll go back to being as dead to me as Mom and Dad are.”

“Not dead … just separated … for a time. Haven’t you said even Moshe admits that the atmosphere looks like it is finally beginning to clear up? Then we can all pull out the radios and communication will be easier. Or maybe something else will come up. Have faith.”

“Don’t try and pacify me Emma. I’m not … not stupid. I may not have had the hard life you’ve led but I’m certainly not stupid.”

“I never said you were and that isn’t what I’m thinking either. I’ve just learned we can’t always have what we want. And as much as I love you Sarah, my life is with Donovan. He is being stifled here. We both are. We need to go back to where we belong.”

Eventually she conceded the point if not the necessity or the timing of it. And eventually Doctor Bennington convinced the community that it was a good thing for them to return us where they took us from. “Think of it like returning a wild animal to its habitat.” I wasn’t real thrilled with the comparison but since that is what it took for us to get our way I never said anything.

Goodbyes were swift but not painless. Two months had healed me, allowed Donovan to heal more, and given the baby a fighting chance to survive. She now weighed ten pounds, more than twice what she came into the world weighing. On the day we were to leave he said as he examined her one last time, “I can admit something to you now. I didn’t think this little peanut was going to make it. She was a classic case of failure to thrive in the womb. There were days I didn’t expect you to survive Emma. But look at you both now. And Donovan looks healthier than I’ve seen him in months, almost from the first time I met him. The three of you together, you’re good for each other. But if you expect me to keep calling this baby “Girly” you are crazy. It is time that you gave this child a name.”

Donovan and I looked at each other. We’d been trying to think of a name for weeks. But every name we came up with had too many memories attached to it or was just too corny. “Well, then, since you two can’t seem to settle on anything would you perhaps listen to a suggestion?”

We nodded. “Jubilee. My wife’s name. She was a good woman, a fine woman. As finer woman than I deserved. It means a special time for remissions of sin and universal pardon. We never had children, were never blessed that way. I always imagined we’d name a daughter after her, continue on the name … and what it meant.”

Donovan quirked an eye at me and I looked at the baby. “How about it baby? What do you think of the name? Jubilee Donovan? I think it sounds nice.”

Donovan added, “Jubilee Emmaline Donovan. I like it.”

And so that is what we finally named her. It had taken two months and endless discussions and in the end it was someone else’s choice but … it fit. And that was the last thing we did before we walked out to the landing pad, climbed aboard the helicopter, and left.

It was cold, much colder than was comfortable, and Jubilee was fussy but somehow Donovan and I were still warm. The breeze smelled of freedom and promise. They sat down in a clearing not too far from the cave and the dogs were coming unglued to be let out of their cage. They smelled home and freedom as well.

The pilot said, “Don’t know when we’ll be this way again. Not enough salvage to be worth the trip. Only reason we are coming this way this time was to check out Ft. Campbell one last time.”

Donovan nodded, “We understand. Go with a clear conscience and tell everyone thank you one more time for us.” Then they were gone and we were walking back up the path, no longer well worn but still well remembered.

We’ve been home a month and it has been as hard as we knew it would be. Donovan tried for a time to move the debris from the entrance but all it did was cause another slide. Instead he now devotes his energy to widening the entrance that once held me captive. It is still narrow, and there is work left to do, but I never have to fear being a prisoner in my own home ever again … at least not for the reason I was before.

We’ve expanded the garden and in about two weeks we should have our first greens be ready to eat. Donovan also managed to get an elk our second week back home and we spent two days processing it and smoking the meat so that it would keep. We’ve spent a great deal of time gathering wood but in another sense we don’t need it nearly as bad.

It’s warmer. Bare patches of ground show through in places … they aren’t even muddy any more. It is still cold but there are days when it is above freezing even after the sun has gone down. I showed Donovan the ridge road and we found another house way back in there to salvage from. There wasn’t much left that nature hadn’t tried to reclaim but a gardening shed gave us some extra tools and some jars of seeds neatly labeled with what they contained. Some of the seeds have even germinated, no small miracle after all this time.

Donovan and I aren’t as reckless as we used to be. We have Jubilee to think of. Donovan resisted me coming on his treks away from home until I said either Jubilee and I came with him being willing or we followed him without his willingness … but either way we were coming. He gave me his typical caveman arguments but eventually he realized that he needed me and I needed him to need me.

There is another way that Donovan and I are more careful. Dr. Bennington told me that it could be dangerous if I got pregnant again too soon. So now we count the days and try our best to not let our desires outweigh our common sense. It isn’t always easy. There is still so much lost time to try and make up for. But we do our best.

And now the baby has finally calmed down. I don’t think she appreciated the onions that I added to the dried corn and beans to make them taste less like they’d been sitting in a can for who knows how many years. Poor little peanut had colic so bad she could have caused another rock slide with the volume of her cries. I’ll know better next time. Donovan said, “Trust me, if you forget, I’ll be sure and remind you. Our kid was born with an oversized set of lungs.”

The truth is he hates for her to cry and him not be able to help her. She’ll have him wrapped around her finger before she is even walking.

But now I’m tired. I have a lot to do tomorrow. This life isn’t easy but it is my life and I wouldn’t trade it for all the comforts any bunker could offer. I wouldn’t care if Donovan and I never left this place again.

The only problem though is that we may not have to leave to have problems with people. Donovan was down by the river, trying his hand at fishing now that the shore is free of ice, when he saw a sign … a footprint. It wasn’t mine and it wasn’t his. The shoe made a funny pattern … it looked like a tire tread. Someone from the bunker would have known to contact us. If not from the bunker then who could it be? And where could they have come from? I have no idea when or if we’ll even find answers to those questions.

One question I’ve almost found the answer to is why. Why did I go through all of this? What was the point? I guess I’ve learned things along the way but I’m fairly certain that God could have pointed me in the right direction without nearly killing me to enforce the lesson. No, I’m beginning to think it really may not have had anything to do with me. I was the instrument rather than the victim.

Donovan. Or rather Donovan’s salvation. I wrote he was a changed man in more ways than one. One of the first things he did when we got back to our cave was to find my Bible and wrote Jubilee’s name and date of birth in the front. And now he is the one that reads Jubilee a “bed time story” from some place in the Bible, the same way my dad used to read them to me. I see an awareness that wasn’t in him before, a depth that I had never uncovered.

He still isn’t overly spiritual, no ostentatious displays for him. And yet … there is a quiet stillness in him that is more powerful than his anger and arrogance ever was. I felt connected to him before our time apart but now I feel … feel … bound to him. Bound to him on a level that I never knew existed. Like we’ve consummated something even greater than what existed between us before. We pull together instead of at cross purposes. Is this what being “equally yoked” means? I don’t know but I appreciate it, whatever it is. And I am still learning … and so is Donovan. I don’t think we’ll ever have a completely calm relationship; one or the other of us will pop off, releasing pent up emotions.

And now it is time for me to lay down beside this man I’ve claimed as my own. If I look closely, it appears that the gray is disappearing. Certainly his ribs do not stand out the way they did and when I run my hand up his back, his spine doesn’t feel like a broken railroad track.

I told Moshe that I was content to spend the remainder of my time here on Earth with Donovan. It was … and is … the truth. And now I’m also beginning to ask God to make that time here on Earth measure in decades and not just the few years we’ve had. Will He answer me in the affirmative? I guess I won’t know that until after it has already happened or not.

Chapter Nineteen

2010-05-21T22:01:00.001-07:00

Chapter 19

When this battery runs out I’m not sure if enough sunlight will reach the panel to recharge it. It will be firelight for me … until the wood runs out. Or maybe something else if I can work it out. When the wood runs out I’ll have more problems than just the loss of some type of light. I probably shouldn’t be wasting this but sometimes the dark gets too dark and the fear presses in and it makes it hard for me to even breathe. I figure, one last hurrah and then I’ll have to live on the memories of being able to organize my thoughts on paper. Or maybe not. I have to keep my hopes up for Bumpkins' sake.

It has been a hard slog since I lost Donovan and I’m convinced now that he is lost. I wanted to hold onto some type of hope but I said, “Emma, it is really time you grew up and stopped living in fantasyland. If Donovan could have he would have come back by now. If he hasn’t come back by now he isn’t coming back and there isn’t a thing you can do about it.”

I finally wrapped my head around it. It wasn’t pleasant, still isn’t pleasant. Sometimes I would forget and I would talk to him like he is still here and I wouldn’t even realize how crazy that was for days. And then I’d catch myself and really get scared as the truth would slam down on me like prison walls with no chance at parole. Not by the situation I find myself in but by the fact that I’m losing it, going bonkers, crazy, with loneliness. My mind has played tricks on me one too many times and for a while there I couldn’t decide whether I was going to let myself go crazy and be happy or stay sane and be lonely and scared.

It was the baby that finally helped me to make up my mind which world I was going to live in. I remember the first time I realized what I was feeling. This little person wiggling around inside me telling me, “Hey! I’m here!!” It was like that old kids’ book Horton Hears a Who. There’s this living, breathing entity that no one else can see, hear, or feel counting on me.

I could go all philosophical and talk about what gives meaning to life but it doesn’t matter. I’m here and now relatively sane, doing my best to prepare myself and this cave for the birth of my child. That’s the sum total of my existence for now and I’m satisfied for it to be that way.

The puppies aren’t really puppies anymore. They only had a little puppy left in them when we found them at the Lodge, that little bit is all but gone. The only thing left is a residual playfulness that causes them to always be in the mood for a little mischief and mayhem. They started to hunt with me and have turned out to be pretty amazing. I wish Donovan had had a chance to see them in action. If it is a burrowing creature it stands no chance against them. They tag team and I’ve seen them bring a rabbit down in seconds and I didn’t think anything could catch a rabbit that didn’t want to get caught.

Just like the dogs have left their puppyhood and have learned to do things on their own, so have I. I came into my own after I lost Donovan. I’m not bragging, not at all; that‘s not how I mean it. I just started to realize that, despite everything that had happened to me, I had always had a protector of one sort or another. I’d started to realize that even before his disappearance but it became brutally clear as time wore on.

First it was my parents and that was as it should be. Then there was Mr. and Mrs. Epstein and even that was right. Despite being a teenager I still needed to be comforted and guided. Even Moshe, though a bit of me still hates to give him any sort of credit, acted like a big brother before inadvertently saving me when he manipulated me into the next phase of my life at the Bunker.

From that point onward though I seemed to stall out or slow down on my personal growth. I kept allowing some one or some thing to get in the way of it. The Colonel, the Committee, the men, the situation I found myself in, you name it I made it an excuse to feel or act a way that was less constructive than it could have been. I did mature, got strong in a real sense, but it doesn’t seem to me that I did as much growing as I should have done had I been able to live a more normal life than one restricted to a small area within a social group already dramatically different from what I was used to experiencing.

The frozen land echoed my frozen heart and I wallowed in that a bit. Looking back it wasn’t until the last bit of civilization had been stripped away and I was forced out into the frozen wasteland of what was left of our world that the ice my heart was encased in took a chance at cracking and falling away. Or maybe it was the circumstances that took a sledgehammer to it. Who knows? I'm not even sure I care what caused it any more. It's enough that it happened.

Even then I still had Donovan. It wasn’t the Prince Charming/Cinderella romance that a lot of women would dream of but it was … something. Love? I think so. Maybe not the love I expected. Maybe not the type of love either one of us needed, both of us being an emotional mess to some degree. But … but it was love. Yes, I can say that now. It was love. But part of me was still more concerned with self-preservation than I should have been. Would Donovan still be here if … ? No. I can’t … won’t ... go down that path. No self-pity. I’ve spent enough time at that.

A baby. It just seems to me that there is no way you cannot wake up to certain facts of life … philosophical and idealogical facts … when you are sharing your body, the blood coursing through your veins, your very genetic signature, with another person who is totally dependent on you. My little Bumpkins. I know the name is silly but I just can’t go around calling the baby “it” until I find out whether he’s a he or she’s a she.

And then, after that horrible day, there I was. The one that had to be the protector. The provider. The hunter. The gatherer. The thinker and planner. The steward of the supplies. The last line of defense. Against animals. Against the wilderness. Against the deadly cold. Yes, all of those people that had been my protectors before played a part in what I was becoming, especially Donovan, but they aren’t here now. No one is here for me to lean on, to count on, for anything. There's just me. Just me and the baby. I was about five months along when I was really forced to wake up and realize that there were some things that no one could have prepared me for and that at some point, the only one left was me and God against the world and what can happen in it.

After Donovan disappeared the brief “Indian Summer” we had experienced disappeared with him. The winter that followed was very bad. It was honestly worse than I had expected, certainly worse than I was prepared for. The blizzards lasted days at first, and then weeks. I only stepped outside twice when January finally rolled around. I brought in as much wood as I could haul whenever I could get outside but by the end of that month freezing to death was becoming a real possibility.

I hung rugs all over the walls of the living quarters trying to trap as much warmth as I could from the smallest fire. I fashioned a canopy and curtains for the bed to trap the body heat I and the dogs created when we finally settled down to sleep at night. I never let the embers in the fireplace go out completely. Getting enough calories was a problem too. I had to balance the need for work to do the chores and to stay warm with the need to rest so Bumpkins wouldn’t starve inside my body.

In November I had brought down an elk that had gotten separated from its herd but she was young, thin, and scrawny. Despite that, the elk was part of my diet until the middle of January, contributing badly needed protein and fat. I even boiled the bones of that poor beast and sucked out the marrow before admitting there was simply nothing of it left to eat. What was left of the bones I gave to the dogs and it kept them happy for a few days.

I wasn’t completely without resources at that point however. Donovan’s Garden – that’s what I call it – actually works. I’ve only grown “rabbit food” like salad greens, herbs, onions, radishes, and some puny carrots but I have to say its been a Godsend, like He and Donovan have been looking after me from afar.

For the rest of January and into February I pretty much ate stir-fry’s, pilafs, and oatmeal every day. The second week of February I was forced to take a long, hard look at the wood pile and my food supplies. Neither one was going to last to the end of the month.

I didn’t see that I had a choice. I had to go hunting again bad weather or no or I’d be eating the dogs next … or they’d be eating me. The night before I was to go I laid out everything and then did some serious praying that I’d have good weather. I was going back to the Lodge. As much as I was disgusted by the very idea, I knew that if I didn’t find something else I would likely be able to trap a rat or two.

I was terrified that that was what I was going to be reduced to. Eating rats. It wasn’t that long ago that I wouldn’t have been hungry enough … strong enough … to have gotten to the point that I could accept such a recourse but I had Bumpkins to think of. As nauseated as I was at the idea, nothing was standing between me and my baby’s survival.

The next morning was almost painfully bright even though I started earlier than I had planned to. It’s simply too dangerous to travel in the dark. You could fall off the trail, down a sink, get hung up in a deadfall. No, better to make sure you can see where you are going even if it cut an hour or so off of your hunting time.

The trail that Donovan and I had broken was completely obliterated. I struggled to find the old landmarks. Some of the boulders were buried under feets of snow. I got lucky and noticed the pylons for the bridge but the surface of the bridge hadn’t survived the weather very well. For safety’s sake I strung a line across it to guide me and to hang onto just in case.

By the time I reached the Lodge I was exhausted. I ate a couple of oatmeal and honey balls that I had packed for energy and then headed towards the river. The river’s boundaries had changed or it had swelled to twice its size. I still haven’t had time to figure out which. Either way it was a much shorter hike to the frozen shore than it should have been. I spent an hour looking for some kind of sign that anything living had been through there recently. Nothing.

I knew that the trek back to the cave was going to be harder as I was going to have to go uphill much of the way so I steeled myself for what I had to do. I won’t describe the “hunt” as it was ridiculously easy. With the dogs gone from the Lodge the rats had truly taken over. We weren’t in the place more than five minutes before all three of us were running out with our lives hanging in the balance … but the dogs had a rat each and immediately started to devour them and I had three.

Trying not to think much I cleaned the carcasses and that helped them to look less like the rodent I knew them to be. I strung them on a stick and they quickly froze. I turned around to find that the dogs had gone back for seconds and thirds. More power to them but I had a feeling that I wasn’t going to be quite as enthusiastic when it came my turn to dine.

We started back for the cave right away but when we got to the bridge the dogs started acting strange.

“Look, I know you liked the thrill of the hunt and the reward but when need to go home,” I told them in exasperation when they both grabbed the ends of my coat and proceeded with what I thought was a game of tug of war.

Then there was a THUNK! The sound brought my head around sharply and I looked at the bridge. There was another THUNK and then another and then before long most of the middle of the bridge had disintegrated. It was like watching a giant kids’ game of Break the Ice. Had the dogs and I been on the bridge when it started to go I doubt I could have moved fast enough to escape falling and being crushed.

Weak with relief it still only took me a moment to realize I was in serious trouble. The bridge was the only place that I had seen to cross the creek that bordered the Lodge’s land. I knew from exploring with Donovan that between the bridge and the river the creek only became wider so that left me with no other choice but to head inland and pray that I could find a tree that spanned from one side to the other or maybe another bridge, even if it was only an old sheet metal one.

I trudged along the creek bank’s rising grade for over an hour and I was getting scared. I needed to get home. Going back to the Lodge and trying to stay there overnight was out of the question as was trying to build a shelter that would protect me from the bitter cold that came as soon as the sun went down. I was nearing tears when I hit a little rise and noticed a bit of a clearing about 100 yards into the trees, along the same path that the creek took.

After I reached my target I took a good look around. The tumbled down house was almost unrecognizable for what it was. Only the peeling, bright red door kept it from disappearing into the landscape of snow and fallen trees that I hadn't seen from the creek. I needed to investigate even if it took more of my precious daylight. This was only the second structure after the rattle trap original cabin that we … I … had seen in the area.

The dogs sniffed the musty air that escaped after I managed to break a window pane and open the door. The wooden floors groaned significantly as I stepped into what looked like a parlor or receiving room. The house was dark but the dogs didn’t appear to sense anything hostile so I went in as far as the light from the door would let me. Remembering the wind up flashlight I took it out and used it to help cover the remainder of the house.

It didn’t take long. In addition to the front room there was a smallish formal dining area, a very casual den/family room, a bathroom that hadn’t been redecorated since Ike was President and two bedrooms that looked like it had been even longer since they had been updated. The only area that had been renovated was the kitchen and it still managed to look like something from the Partridge Family. Nothing looked disturbed or rifled through and for some reason I felt guilty pawing through the unknown owner's things.

The cans and jars in the kitchen cabinets were all destroyed by the freezing cold. You could tell where things had oozed out at some point in the beginning and a wicked smell came from one that I refused to even open. After the kitchen I turned to the bathroom to see if there was any toilet paper or paper products. Sure enough there was a cabinet full and I found a laundry basket and loaded it down and then switched it to a garbage bag when I found a box of those. Then I went to the family room and that where I found the note lying on the little desk in front of a shuttered window.

Junior, if you Wylene and the youngins get here before I get home don’t wurry none and make yourself to home. Tell Wylene to get sum cornbread and beans going to feed y’all up after that long drive. I’ve gone to town to get your Maw from that dat blamed nursing home. I cain’t raise em, not even with that corn foggled cell phone you gave me at Christmas. There might jest be something to what them army men were a telling us down at the school. Them folks from Lancaster showed up about ten minutes ago, lickety splitting it up the Ridge. They sure did look scairt and I’ll admit between me and you that I’m getting that way myself. Gonna try and bring some extry groceries home from Houchens just in case. Be home soonest. Dad

Junior and his family had never shown up and the old man had never returned. This would have been a pretty good place to hole up if they had managed to stay warm. The Hollow were the house was located seemed like it had been protected better than most as it had fewer downed trees than any I had seen up to then.

The man had mentioned cornbread and beans which meant that there had to be other groceries besides what I had seen in the kitchen cabinets so I went to take another look. Sure enough a small panel in the back of the broom closet was kilted just enough out of whack that I found the root cellar without too much more trouble.

The dogs scooted down there and then came up the stairs wagging their tails as if to say, “All clear!”

I felt a deep sense of success and relief when I got to the bottom of the stairs. Old gallon-sized mason jars lined a short four foot wall from floor to ceiling. It wasn’t Ali Babba’s cave but it was still treasure. If I was careful I could piece out the beans and cornmeal in those jars to last me at least another month or two I thought to myself.

On another wall there jars of what looked like tomato juice but the rings on the jars were black with corrosion and I wasn’t going to risk a case of botulism. In fact the only thing useable down in the root cellar was what had been in those first jars. Everything else including the fresh food that must have been stored there as witnessed by the dusty mold in the boxes and crates was not worth the risk.

I could only carry two of the jars up the stairs at a time so it took a half dozen trips. I set the jars in the clothes basket I had abandoned and then found a mate to hold the ones that the first basket didn’t hold and I set the garbage bag of paper products on the snow saucer that was my habit to bring when I was outside. Using some twine I found in a drawer in the kitchen I tied my “train” together and then did what Donovan and I had done on previous occasions. I knew there had to be a road and a bridge across the creek some place close by and sure enough the creek was little more than a gully where the wooden bridge sans any kind of guard rails crossed it.

I was very careful to watch for land marks so I could find my way back and investigate “the Lancaster people” more but first I had to find my way home.

It wasn’t as hard as I had thought it was going to be. In fact, barring getting turned around once because I was coming at a granite outcropping from a different angle than I had ever done before it was pretty easy, all downhill. The only rough part was getting around some trees that had fallen across and hidden the gravel roadway that I had been traveling on. The only other thing that happened to cause me problems was when the clothes baskets of jars tried to get ahead of me on a particular piece of steep grade.

I was beyond exhaustion by the time I got home and my belly had a strange, taught feeling to it that scared me a little bit. I gave the dogs the rat carcasses and climbed in bed, falling asleep before I remembered to light a fire. I woke up shivering in the night and in need of the bucket I kept behind a screen as a toilet.

I spent the next entire day in bed though I agonized over needing to get more wood. Every time I tried to get up for any length of time I would get that same funny feeling low in my gut, like something was pulling and clinching. It was another day beyond that before I could get up without getting that feeling and even then I thought it smarter to stick with very small wood and limbs rather than trying to chop anything too big.

I spent the next few days gathering wood and planning what I needed to do next. Over the next three weeks I hit the farmhouse again and I did find two other little houses – or what remained of them – in the woods higher along the ridge.

In the first house I found enough odds and ends to last me three or four weeks but in the last house … in the last house I found the future I was looking at if I didn’t get my rear in gear and come up with a long term sustainable plan of some type. The cupboards were completely bare. The remains of what I took to be the family pet hung in a shed outside. The family … a man, woman, and two small children … I found in a single bed made up in front of the fireplace in the living room. The sunken eyes and hollows beneath the cheeks of the corpses weren’t just a result of mummification. I got out of there as fast as I could.

It was during this time of going higher on the ridge that the dogs started hunting on their own. I guess going back to the Lodge had given them a taste for it. I didn’t know what they were doing the first time they brought something to me. I reached down and picked up what they had dropped at my feet without even thinking about it. It took me a second to realize it was a rabbit. I shrieked and dropped it when the head flopped over and seemed to look at me. The dogs thought it was hilarious and were jumping around and wagging their tails.

I split it with them since they’d been so good about bringing it to me before they tore into it. That set the rules. About once a week they’ll bring me something, even now that I’m stuck here.

It was in March that it happened. The dogs and I had gone to bed after a long day of gathering wood. The weather was milder but that was relative to what had been over the winter. There was still snow on the ground, just two feet instead of five or more. And it was still horribly cold, just not forty below zero cold. The wind still blew, it just didn’t scour blood from any exposed skin.

I was feeling pretty satisfied that I could hold out another three or four months at the rate I was going and between now and then I was certain that something else would present itself if I stayed vigilant to any possibility. Heck, maybe the river would thaw and I could add fish to my diet. The thought made my mouth water so much I drooled on my pillow as I faded into sleep.

I was awoken by a deep rumbling. The dogs were terrified and ran all over the bed whining and digging under the covers and under me too as far as they could. I didn’t know what was going on and stayed curled up on the bed until it stopped. It couldn’t have lasted but a few minutes but it has been a few minutes that has changed my life.

I took the lantern and first went into the big chamber. Some things had been knocked from the shelves in the storage rooms, an old bureau had crashed over and splintered into pieces, but by and large that was the only damage. I felt lucky and went back to bed.

The next morning the dogs were whining to be let out and I stepped into the room where I keep the wood and noticed a lot of rock had fallen to the floor. Thinking it was just another bit of luck that I didn’t keep anything breakable in there I opened the door to go out … and was faced with more rock.

It took me a while to investigate what had happened. I went tearing back into the big chamber and then carefully made my way to what we had called “the back door.” I wouldn’t call it a cave opening so much as a fissure that had been big enough for Donovan and I to squeeze out of. And boy was I really squeezing to get out of it now. It was easier for me to back out of the opening than to slide through sideways as I had in the past.

I made my way to the cave opening … or where the cave opening was supposed to be. There had been a very serious rock slide and there was going to be no way for me to move all of the dirt and rock that blocked the entrance.

The dogs had followed me out and were frisking around taking care of business in the morning light and then investigating the new and interesting smells the tumbled rocks had exposed. All I could do was sit and stare and the mutts seemed to wonder why I wasn’t excited by this new thing that had happened.

I wasn’t excited, I was all but devastated. I had been flying along, feeling so good about the latest round of salvaging from those three houses, about adding to my food supplies and about the things that I had brought back to prepare for the baby. Why did it have to happen? Why?

I went back inside, scraping my belly along the way and then cried myself back to sleep. The dogs’ cold noses in my ear woke me up and amazingly I no longer felt like it was the end of the world all over again. The slide was just something else to conquer. I had no choice. Bumpkins needed me to conquer it.

I went back to the “back door” and christened it the new front door. Then, thinking about what I could do to improve the new entrance I realized I was going to have to enlarge it or right quick I was going to be too big to get out. I took the hammer and chisel and spent the rest of the day and the next trying to knock off the worst of the edges that dug into me as I squeezed through.

Tried to knock off the edges. My success was limited. If anyone ever reads this journal I hope they can understand my frustration at the results that I could get with a regular hammer and small chisel as I banged away at that pink and gray Kentucky granite. The worst of the sharp outcroppings did come off but it only gained me an inch or two here and there. Overall the fissure was still going to get tighter before I got thinner again.

I did give serious consideration to moving to one of the other houses I had found but there is really no way that I could have rehabbed the buildings to make them safe enough and warm enough for me to live in while the weather stayed the way it was. All three houses had some pretty bad structural damage, especially in the roof. And the Lodge was completely out of the question unless I wanted to wake up with who knows how many rats at my throat … or maybe not even get the chance to wake up.

After food and wood my size was becoming my primary problem. My heavy coat isn’t fitting too well, I use a length of cord to keep it tied shut. I literally have to lay a thick fleece padding onto my front and then lace myself into the thing before I go out. I have a hard time keeping my pants up as well as I hike. I can’t button them and none of the belts left from Donovan’s belongings fit anymore either. I had to use strips of elastic to fashion suspenders and I look like a clown all the way down to the larger boots I’m forced to wear because my feet and ankles are constantly swollen. All I need is a flower that squirts water on my jacket front and a red nose that squeaks and the picture would be complete.

At first, while it was uncomfortable, I could still fairly easily squeeze in and out the opening. While out I gathered all the wood I could in the mornings and then spent the afternoons recovering or taking care of some other chore. But within a couple of weeks it was very uncomfortable squeezing through the opening. I knew what was coming.

No matter what I tried there simply was no making that fissure any wider. At the same time I was not going to find a safer home for Bumpkins. I knew I was going to get fatter before I was going to get thinner. I knew I didn’t have any other option. It was taking a huge chance but there really wasn’t a good alternative. My prepping went into over drive.

I drug in all of the branches that I could, even some big ones that made it feel like I was pulling something in my side I really had no busy doing, and left them in the floor of the big chamber to be dealt with later. Then I took one last trek to the three houses, gathering anything at all that could be considered useful, using the sled that Donovan had fashioned. On my way back I spotted what I thought was a tumbled down barn and just to mark it off my list I stopped. It wasn’t a barn, it was a silo. Actually it was two small silos. I’d found at least one of places that the elk were feeding from.

One silo was completely empty and there was plenty of dung under the snow. They hadn’t been this way in a while and I figured they’d found richer pickings or had moved into another valley completely when the weather turned really nasty.

The other silo looked like the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The strange thing was that, rather than pulling away from its concrete foundation it had pulled the foundation up with it. I had to use a rock to bust off the door knob but I was rewarded with enough corn to keep me in cornmeal for several months assuming I could transport it to the cave.

I did my best to close the door back up and then headed home. The next day I came back with several feed bags and 3 mil construction site garbage bags as well as two Sterlite storage tubs with locking lids. I was shocked when I got to the silo. Something had been into the corn. A lot of it was scattered on the ground and there was fresh dung as well. I couldn’t tell if it was elk or what, never having studied wild animal poop before; but whatever it was it was bigger than the dogs but smaller than the buffalos. The tracks weren’t very clear in the melting snow either and I gave up trying to figure it out.

Using a shovel I scooped up the corn kernels that were left and found that there was barely enough to fill the two large tubs I had brought. I should have been really upset but I wasn’t. The hope of finding animals returning to the forest was too great.

That was the last trip I took. As I worried would happen I’ve grown too big to fit through the fissure. In fact, at seven, almost eight months, I can’t even get passed the first bend any more. The dogs supply me with a weekly dose of protein. They seem to think it is their duty and have come to appreciate me skinning whatever beastie they bring me to save them the trouble though they’ll take the skin outside and tussle with it like a toy … or like they are training.

And yes, I’ve finally been forced to eat rat. It was easier to do than I had expected. I could feel my body craving protein. I knew that there were things that can go wrong if the baby doesn’t get all the nutrients that it needs while developing. The needs of Bumpkins is the be all and end all of my existence now.

But my problem is that I can’t get the solar panels far enough into the fissure so that they’ll get sunlight to charge the garden batteries. Donovan never finished the bicycle generator. I guess that’s what will take up the hours that I’m stuck in here.

And the wood is running low again. It takes a lot of boiling the corn and beans to make them soft because they are getting old. I know I can break up and burn some of the old furniture down here but I’m worried that it could be treated with something poisonous. Maybe I can get the dogs to play “fetch the stick.” Wouldn’t that be a hoot?

It’s either laugh or cry. I suppose I’ll know in a few days whether it is futile to work on the bicycle generator or not. If I do get it going I’ll need to try and figure out how to put a wide seat on the bike. There is no way that skinny thing is going to do anything for my pregnant backside at this stage.

And look, the battery held out just long enough. It will be too dim to see before much longer. The question remaining is will the darkness be permanent or will there be a light at the end of the tunnel?

Chapter Eighteen

2010-04-27T19:22:00.001-07:00

Chapter 18

It’s been so long since I sat down and wrote about something besides inventories and recipes. I’ve just been trying to stay organized so I can maintain some sanity. My feelings I save for the privacy of my own thoughts or I talk to the dogs; but I feel really alone right now and I know I have to deal with things in a healthy way or I won’t be the only one suffering because of it.

Donovan and I had it good for about two months from the last point that I wrote. It was boring in a sense but I’ve learned that sometimes survival is boring and it is something you should be grateful for. You get up in the morning, put one foot in front of the other, do what you have to, have a little quality together time if you aren’t too tired or hungry; then you go to bed so you can get up and do it again the next day.

Boring isn’t bad. Actually boring can be good. I learned from being bored. I learned that life will only present so many opportunities and you have to create the rest of them for yourself. I learned that intellectual stimulation is something to be sought and not assumed. With Donovan’s help I started to develop a stronger inner quiet than I’ve ever had. I’d avoided dealing with stuff by pushing it off and saying it didn’t matter for so long that I really wasn’t as healthy and well-balanced as I wanted to believe. If the world had continued to turn as it had prior to Impact Day I might have gotten away with it for the rest of my life, but I can’t say for sure that I would have and I’ve come to believe using the term “life” for what I was living really wasn’t the best description.

The time I spent with Donovan during those two months and not talking was just as enlightening for me as when we did sit and talk. And I’m not being sarcastic when I say that. I think I’m a more balanced person than I was before, more secure, less … less … juvenile in how I view my life and world I guess you could say. It’s about time that I grew up; if not grow up, at least stretched beyond the person I had allowed myself to become out of self-preservation.

You’d think, having to basically grow up so fast when Mom and Dad died that I would have avoided some of the pitfalls of my peers. Instead I over compensated and built up barriers to not only keep pain out but keep people that might cause me pain out. I compartmentalized my life to such an extreme that one part had seemingly nothing to do with the other parts. I was like a jigsaw puzzle that fit together but didn’t make a comprehensible picture.

In Donovan I found someone I could trust; tough, like my dad, but with a different set of life experiences that made him that way so I didn’t have to be concerned about having a father-complex in my attraction to him. He did a lot for me and I learned to appreciate that rather than be resentful of it. His strength and experience is what literally kept us alive.

One day I sat down with him, he was very tired after another full day of cutting wood and I told him, “Donovan, if not for you I know I wouldn’t be alive right now. I know I act a little like a brat sometimes but I’m trying to get better … and I just wanted you to know that I really do appreciate all that you do.”

I didn’t realize it at the time but that expression of my appreciation broke Donovan’s calm acceptance of our situation. It took me a while to notice but suddenly I was getting all of these lessons in doing the things that Donovan had been doing. He taught me the easiest way to cut wood and then built gizmos to make it easier for me to do the chores that he had been doing alone.

He taught me to hunt. I was terrible at first but we practiced … a lot. We rarely brought anything in but it was still invaluable experience that has stood me well. I learned to orienteer on my own, how to build cold weather shelters, how to build traps and track animals, you name it. I thought at first it was just something for us to do. I wanted to please him, wanted to help more so he wasn’t so tired at the end of the day, so I tried my best and I did learn and get better. But the quiet and easiness of our previous relationship was gone and it wasn’t until we saw the helicopter that I realized that it had actually been gone for weeks.

We heard it before we saw it. It was flying straight across the valley and I was so excited that I ran out into the open to get a better look. Something hit me from behind, sending me into the snow and then we were rolling into the underbrush.

“Donovan! What on earth are … !” A snowy gloved hand cut me off and I could see he was furious.

It wasn’t until the helicopter had been gone thirty minutes that he let me up out of the snow and brush and gave me the tongue lashing he’d obviously been holding back.

“Have … you … learned … nothing?!”

“But … but … What are you talking about?! That was a helicopter!! A helicopter for Pete’s Sake! It’s the first sign of other people that we’ve seen in months! And it’s incredible! People somewhere have to be doing OK if they have helicopters!”

Exasperated at me Donovan shouted back, “What people? Where do they come from? Where were they heading? What’s their mission? Are they looking for survivors or are they looking for stuff?”

“How should I know?! But … there are people! Other people!!”

“Emma, think! Use that thing up there for something other than driving me crazy!!” Well that didn’t make me any calmer but when he grabbed me and crushed me to him I knew he wasn’t doing whatever he was doing to hurt me.

“OK … so explain to me how big an idiot that I’m being ‘cause I’m not seeing it. This isn’t some weird guy thing is it?”

Calmer, we walked back home but by a route that kept us in the densest areas of the trees. There wasn’t any breath left to talk, Donovan had us moving at a pretty good pace, but even had we been slower the cold kept speech to a minimum or nonexistent. In fact, to keep from wasting breath and frosting over our face protection any more than necessary, we’d developed hand signals. The signals were a combination of motions developed by Donovan and some ASL signs from a class I had taken as my foreign language component for my college degree.

The hand signals came in very handy. For instance, while we were walking home he signaled me “no talking” and “fast silent” which basically meant “shut up and travel fast but as quietly as possible.” He stopped me when we got to the clearing between us and the entrance to the cave. We knelt and he motioned me to stay and not move until he signaled for me. He got as close as he could before breaking cover and then ran to the entrance of the cave and … well, basically he was checking things out to see if someone had been there. He finally signaled me to come on.

He pulled me into the outer cave, assessed the wood pile to see if we needed more than secured the door and we walked into the living area and he secured that door as well before he uttered a sound. “Emma, don’t ever, ever do that again.”

“Like I said Donovan, clue me in. I understand I did something wrong but what …”

“Wrong?! Emma … argh!” He grabbed me by my shoulders and pushed me to the sofa with force but he wasn’t trying to hurt or scare me. “Emma, we had no idea who those people were. I didn’t even get a good enough look to see what country they were from.”

“Of course they were our people … oh … oh, this is like that … oh.”

“Yes, oh.”

One of the things that Donovan and I had talked about was the eventual need to hook up with other people. Neither one of us seemed to relish the idea of being Adam and Eve. We wanted to create a home for ourselves but we didn’t want to be solely responsible for repopulating the entire world and messing things up even more than the original man and woman had. In the process we had discussed different scenarios of what the world was going to be like in the coming years.

The scenarios ran the gamut from an unlikely utopia because human beings had finally taken all of their past mistakes to heart and reformed to the other extreme of something that would have made Mad Maxx cringe. One particular scenario involved the issue of foreign powers coming into the US in search of resources and assets. I thought it was a little farfetched but Donovan said that once upon the time UN Peacekeepers had been a farfetched idea.

“Emma, I’m not against … investigating … if the helicopter ever comes back. My guess is they were checking out Ft. Campbell – or were from Ft. Campbell. That was the general direction they were coming from this time. But where were they going? And who were they? You have got to think girl. What would have happened if they had seen you, come back, and simply taken you … or worse?”

“I wouldn’t let them take me … and what do you mean … oh … well, you’ve taught me … to … um, protect myself. That is what all those hand-to-hand combat exercises have been right? Even before we left the bunker, right?”

“Hypothetical situations. Yes, I’ve been trying to … @#$%&! Emma, what happens to you if something happens to me?! What if I’m not here? You’ve got to start thinking!”

“What do you mean if you aren’t here? Of course you’ll be here. We’ll be here. Together. We’ll …”

“Emma … Honey …,” then he stopped and sighed. “Accidents happen Emma; I shouldn’t have to tell you that. Look at what happened to your parents. There are no hospitals or doctors out here. What if one of us gets sick? The same problem girl … we can only do so much for each other. If something were to happen to me I have to know that you aren’t just going to curl up and give up. Do you hear me? I have to be able to trust you on this.”

He’d hit a nerve I’d forgotten I had. The bottom dropped out of my stomach. Of course I had known it was possible. Of course I had subliminally gotten the message he was sending. Contrary to the way I sometimes act, I am not stupid. But he’d also angered me and I grabbed a throw pillow and squeezed it tight in my hands.

“No … no I’m not just going to curl up and give up as you so aptly put it. But I swear Donovan, if you don’t do everything you can to stay with me I’ll make sure we’re the first case of the living haunting the dead. You got that you Neanderthal?!” And then I got in two good hits with the pillow before we started wrestling around and … well, never mind, let’s just say that dinner was late as we were both too wound up with emotions to focus on much besides the immediate need for physical contact.

The next two weeks were filled with lots and lots of training. I felt like a new recruit in Donovan’s army. I had a hard time understanding why Donovan was so hyper about it all of a sudden but since it was important to him it became important to me. I knew he only had my best interests at heart and the praise he gave me at nights went a long way towards healing any hurts or humiliations that I had felt during the days. Looking back I can only appreciate everything he did but at the same time … at the same time … I almost wish …

After about two weeks of training Donovan agreed that we both deserved a break. We had a weird sort of picnic in a little area that never got much wind because of the way the granite boulders and the large tree trunks encircled it. After a lunch that cooled too quickly as we took turns eating it out of a thermos I asked, “All of this training … will it do any good when the people come back?”

To my surprise Donovan snapped, “Is that all you ever think about? You can’t wait for those people to come back so you can get away. Well, I’ll just light a signal fire next time and good riddance.”

Now Donovan could have his moods but even for him that was extreme. “Excuse me?! Where did that come from? All I did was ask …”

“Yeah, yeah. You haven’t ever been satisfied with the cave or …”

“Donovan, did we switch bodies or something because you sound just like I imagine I did not that long ago. I didn’t say a single thing about escaping from here. I sure as heck didn’t … and where would we go anyway? There’s no saying that they are really any better off than we are here and …”

“Don’t make fun of …”

I couldn’t help it. It was just too weird. I couldn’t finish a sentence and he wouldn’t. I picked up a wad of snow and let go and hit him square in the face with it. “Listen you Neanderthal, don’t put words in my mouth and for Pete’s Sake speak in something besides man riddles. You know I don’t get …”

Suddenly we were rolling around in the snow and I’m still not sure if it was a for real fight or just both of us blowing off some stress in a wrestling contest like a couple of juvenile delinquents. Then he accidentally on purpose hit one of my worst ticklish spots and the battle was on because I knew where he was ticklish too. The “battle” wound up turning into something not really suited to the temperature nor the environment.

“Donovan, what just happened?” I said between chattering teeth while I tried to put things back where they belonged. All I got in return is a raised eyebrow and wicked look. “Not that you big goof, the rest of it; what was all of that about? I still don’t get it.”

After a deep sigh and a groan at my seeming obtuseness he said, “Emma, I know you want to get back to civilization but do you have to talk about it all the time?”

“Hey! I don’t talk about it all the time. I never even called it … whatever it is supposed to be … civilization. I just don’t see what is so bad about finding out what is going on with other people.”

“You want to hook up with them and … and …”

“And what? You said yourself we will eventually need to for trade and news. How is it going to hurt us to find out if the helicopter people might be our friends, maybe from another bunker or something.”

In a voice heavy with sarcasm he said, “And you had such a great time at the bunker.”

That gave me pause. “OK, so I wasn’t real thrilled with my social status or being tricked to get me there. I sure as heck didn’t approve of the brood mare mentality that some of the other Levels seemed to regard us with. But some of the people were OK. I mean, look at us.”

“Yeah, look at us. The only reason we are together is because we were forced into it.”

That was like a cold slap in the face, especially after what we had just shared. I’d gotten over my crybaby phase, or at least I thought I had but when he said that something inside me curled up on itself and felt like it was withering. I got up and started gathering kindling to take back to the cave.

“I’m sorry you feel like that Donovan,” I said in what I hoped was a mature and even tone of voice. The last thing I wanted him to know at that point was just how much power he had over me and my emotions.

“Emma …”

I needed to stay in control because I knew if I lost it he would see just how much I had come to depend on him in ways that went way beyond simple physical comfort.

“I’ve got to get back and get those chores done before the next storm or it may be who knows how long before we have clean clothes and bedding. Can you bring the thermos while I carry this wood?”

“Emma … I … That didn’t come out …”

“Forget it Donovan. We’re both just tired. Let’s get going. There were some things you said you wanted to get done too.”

I thought I did pretty good about not crying … ok, let’s be honest, not letting him see me cry. I didn’t pout. I didn’t get cranky or snappy or anything else. I was trying to do the mature thing of just accepting it. It still hurt but at least I had my self respect, cold comfort though that was. The dogs knew something was off; they would come and lean against my legs until I would bend down and scratch their heads.

I even managed to eat dinner though it tasted like ashes in my mouth. Afterwards I sewed up a rip in some t-shirts and then went to bed without complaint when he put out the solar lamp and banked the fire. I was so tired out from trying to be mature that I fell into a half sleep almost immediately.

I don’t know what time it was but I woke up to Donovan nudging me. “Emma … Emma … Are you awake?”

Exhausted I yawned, “I am now. Why are you whispering?”

“In case you were asleep.”

I thought, “That’s the Neanderthal that I know and love.” Then the memory of what he said came slamming back in place. “Is there something you need? Did dinner make you sick? What time is it any way?”

“We need to talk.”

I rolled over and looked at him. I didn’t really see him; the only light came from the coals on the fire, but I could make out his outline. “Talk? Donovan it’s some o’clock in the morning and we have to cut wood as soon as we get up and …”

“It didn’t come out the way I meant it Emma. I was just … I don’t know what I was just. But what I said wasn’t what I meant.”

I wasn’t in the mood to play coy or Miss Dippy Empty-Brain. I knew exactly what he was talking about. “Ok.

“Ok? That’s all you’re going to say?”

“How do you want me to respond? You said it came out wrong, so it came out wrong. End of story.”

He sighed with something that sounded like regret. “Don’t do this Emma. It isn’t exactly easy for me to apologize.”

As calmly as I could I said, “I didn’t ask you to apologize. Did I throw a fit? Did I act like a cry baby? Did I make any kind of fuss at all? You hate drama and you hate scenes. I was trying to be … forget it. It doesn’t matter. Let’s go to sleep. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow for both of us.”

Now he was irritated. “Don’t you care?!”

“Why are you still whispering? There isn’t anyone here but us. Well, the dogs but they don’t count. I told you, I’m fine. You’re fine. It’s over and … Hey … Ow!”

He’d tried to grab me by my shoulders but in the dark he’d pinched the meat of one of my arms and grabbed my hair with his other hand. “Don’t shut me out. I said I was sorry.”

“God Donovan, back off will you. That hurt and I hate when you grab me like that. You leave bruises. You said that you didn’t mean it the way it came out. I said fine. You are the one making the scene this time,” I said sitting up in bed and trying to rub away the ouch I knew was coming.

“Is that why?”

“Is what why? I mean why what? I mean … Geez, now I sound like an idiot on top of everything else. Donovan …,” I took a deep calming breath and said, “just spit it out already. I’m really tired and getting stupid confused.”

Even in the dark I could tell he was angry, and something else too but I wasn’t sure what. “Do you want to leave me because I’m … more physical than you are?”

I was more than a little irritated by that point. “Who said anything about me leaving you? You were the one that said the only reason we were together was because we were forced into it. And what do you mean more physical than I am anyway? Donovan, I’m going to say this one more time. I’m tired. You are driving me crazy. I’m confused. I don’t understand what you mean. And … you’re making me wonder if I ever had any of this right or figured out!” I yelled the last bit to put an exclamation point on my frustration.

“You want to leave me. You keep talking about finding other people.”

“I keep talking about us finding other people you loon. And I still fail to understand the problem with that if you want to know the truth. We might need to … I don’t know … something. Don’t you want to know what has happened in the world? By the way bucko, I don’t appreciate how shallow you think I am. What, you think just because I see some other guy I’m going to jump out of your bed and into his? Well, if you’ll think back, I waited a long time until I jumped into yours. So thanks ever so much for the character reference.”

I was getting pretty angry. It was all made even more ridiculous by the fact that when I tried to roll out of bed Donovan grabbed me again. I’d had enough. I used a couple of those moves he’d taught me, surprising him I guess because I’d actually been paying attention, and got loose faster than I had expected. I made it out of bed and was so mad I was stumbling around looking for my clothes, shoes, and I don’t remember what all. Where I planned on going I don’t rightly remember either.

I didn’t get far because Donovan had finally caught his breath and grabbed me in a bear hug. “No doing damage to the leg. I’m already going to have a good sized goose egg from your little attack. Now settle down and answer me this.” I was unceremoniously swung up in his arms and then plunked down on the sofa in front of the fire. “Don’t move. I’m going to get the fire going again.”

Since I was basically wandering around in an oversized shirt and knee-length socks I grabbed the blanket off the back of the sofa, drew my legs up, and wrapped up until the fire caught.

“So … am I sleeping with the dogs?” he asked, kneeling by the fire.

“You are so not giving me the I’m-too-cute-to-be-in-trouble routine. Because I’m so not feeling the vibe at the moment.”

He came over and sat on the floor at my feet, “I’m sleeping with the dogs.”

“You should be,” I said, nudging him with my sock-covered toes.

He tilted his head back to look at me. “But … you won’t make me?”

“On one condition,” I said, charmed despite the walls that were slowly coming down.

“And that is?” he asked, cautiously getting up onto the sofa beside me.

“Explain what is going on. This is too weird. I’m the one that gets hyper needy and makes a muck of things. Not you. You’ve already done all of this relationship stuff and know how it is supposed to work.” I wasn’t just drawing things out to make him suffer. I wanted to understand so that this could be fixed and we could move on. But part of me was hoping it wasn’t something that I had done to cause it as well.

“Hmmm,” he sighed as he got under the blanket with me. We were both chilled and sharing body warmth only made sense. “Yeah, I’ve already been through ‘all of this relationship stuff’ and gotten third degree burns from it. So … I’m carrying more baggage than I thought. Maybe if we had started this when we were around other people … but we didn’t and … and so maybe I’m a little worried that … when the time comes for us to be a couple around other people I won’t measure up. I’m not as educated as the guys you were around before and …”

“Oh Donovan. Maybe … I don’t know … I wish I could say that had things been ‘normal’ we would have still gotten together but it took the world coming to an end for me to get the chance to meet you. You were married, remember?”

“I spent a couple of years trying to forget.”

“Well, I can’t. You’re my first … for a lot of things. But you have lots of women to compare me against. I’ve had to learn to accept that … that I’m not your first, for anything. And that you probably compare me to … to, you know, all those others and that I might not measure up. Wait! No, I don’t want to know. What is in the past can stay in the past. I’ve got enough hang ups. I just mean that, I never thought that you being my first for all of that would be a problem.”

“It’s not. And this is stupid. I’m … look … those people in the helicopter make me nervous for some reason. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

“Fine. But next time … I don’t know … Look, I’ve tried really hard to think before I open my mouth but if I’m still saying stuff that upsets you I need to know up front. I …”

“No, you’re doing fine. Let’s not go there.” But he was still looking at me with a troubled look in his eyes. “I don’t mean to put bruises on you Emma. I’m a rough guy, you know that, but … but that’s no excuse for … do I hurt you? Why haven’t you said anything before now?”

Not wanting to upset him anymore but feeling the need to be completely honest I told him, “Donovan, I really don’t mind that you like to get into it sometimes. The wrestling can be exciting, especially when … well, you know what I mean. Maybe I should mind, but I don’t, mostly because I trust you not to go too far and really hurt me. But the grabbing me by the arms … yeah, you sometimes bruise me and sometimes it gets scary when you are for real angry and not just growly.”

“I’ll try not to do that again. I … it’s more baggage Emma and I …”

“It’s all right Donovan, just … just tone it back a bit.”

Since then I’ve wondered just how far I would have let him go just to keep him with me. I know he really didn’t mean to hurt me. Baggage was a pretty good word for what we both brought into things. But, had Donovan been a different kind of guy, what could things have devolved into? And how many other females out there are putting up with situations that hurt just to have a protector for themselves or their children? How many people, both male and female, are letting their personal issues become physical issues? How bleak could the future get?

But Donovan and I at that moment seemed to have reached some kind of new level of understanding. The next two days were tentative for both of us but still good. It could have been my imagination but even the dogs seemed to notice. The calm we felt translated to them and they were calmer as well, even when we took them outside for longer than usual.

We saw the helicopter again shortly after that. It used the same flight path it had before. We had just started to come out of the tree line when it returned and circled the area twice before flying off.

“That … was …” Donovan trailed off.

“Was what?” I asked when he never finished his statement.

“Hm? Oh … the same flight path as before confirms two fixed points that they are flying between. But what was it that caught their attention enough that they broken and flew this area specifically? Heat signature? I doubt it was anything visual, they were flying too fast. We have fresh snow and we entered the woods at a point they weren’t … the cave wasn’t in their … @#$% … @#$% … @#$% !!!”

“What?!”

“The transport,” he ground out, the breath leaving his mouth and curling up like smoke from brimstone.

“It’s hidden, or at least what is left of it is. It’s nothing but scrap,” I reminded him.

“Right. And it’s probably nothing we dismantled and brought into the cave. The thickness of the rock walls would stop a signal.”

I shuddered having to suck in too much cold air to give my blood the oxygen it craved as I all but ran through the woods to keep up with Donovan’s ground eating strides. “Donovan slow down! What signal?”

Donovan eventually slowed down, but not much. I didn’t catch up until we reached the now snow covered pile of rocks and trees that hid what was left of the transport. I watched as Donovan scanned the sky and then looked at the mess before us with narrowed eyes.

“Yeah. This has to be it. This was pretty much dead center of where they were circling.”

I finally could talk without gasping. “Are you saying that something here gave this away?”

“Think Emma. It’s metal … cold metal … so even assuming they have the capability there wouldn’t be a heat signature. Visually there is nothing that differentiates this pile of debris from any of the other piles of debris in the forest. So …”

“Some kind of signal,” I responded trying to suspend my skepticism and see it his way.

“So it would appear. I disabled the locator beacon and its back up when we were dismantling the transport. There must be another redundancy I didn’t find.”

“How? We went over it with a fine tooth comb before we buried it. We took all of the upholstery and just about everything else that wasn’t welded to the frame.”

“Emma, are you sure you …”

“Donovan, both of us did. We went over it three or four times to make sure nothing potentially useful was wasted.”

“Then … inside a welded seam maybe. Only one way to find out.”

We spent the rest of the day digging into the pile and then going over the vehicle’s remains and found nothing. Undaunted, Donovan had us return again in the morning and it was at the point even Donovan was ready to give up that we found the small transponder behind a welded plate. But even after finding it we weren’t positive that truly was what had caught the helicopter people’s attention because the little gizmo had a crack in it and the wire running to the small battery was only attached by a few strands; the soldering had come loose.

Donovan handed me the transponder to look at and when it slipped from my gloved hand to fall to the ground we both looked down at it and then at each other. He bent to pick it up but I stepped forward and kissed him bold as brass, distracting his attention. When we finally broke apart I looked into his eyes, grinned a little guiltily and said, “Oops.”

“Oops?” Donovan asked suspiciously.

I pointed down and moved my boot to reveal that the remains of the transponder resembled little more than a pile of ground up bits and pieces.

Donovan’s eyes widened a little before shuttering, “Emma …”

“Eventually we’ll need to hook up with other people. But when we do, we’ll do it carefully and on our own terms.” I said using some of his words and adding a few of my own to make the point.

Still reserved Donovan asked, “You’re sure?”

“As sure as I’ve ever been. I trust you. We’re a team. If something about these helicopter people feels hinky, then so be it. We have each other and that’s enough.”

I don’t regret saying what I did but the words have haunted me, echoing in every corner of my head whether I am awake or asleep. But even with that, the look on Donovan’s face when I said it still can drive the cold and shadows away with its warmth. The heat in his smile … well, the romantic in me suspects that’s when it happened, not that I knew it then or even had been thinking along those lines.

The following week is almost idyllic in my memory though not idyllic in the traditional sense. Things were just near perfect to our needs; personally and physically.

The “warm” weather held and the snow melted in places it had never melted since we’d arrived. I actually did our laundry outside one day and the sun dried them before they froze stiff. Donovan and I went hunting and instead of the elk we had planned on he got a lucky shot and brought down a buffalo.

As we processed the beast Donovan commented, “This animal has been feeding well on something.”

“Maybe there is some grass growing through the snow someplace nearby?”

“More than likely a silo has overturned or they’ve found hay bales. There might even be dried crops under the snow. Buffalo get better nutritional value from their food than other cattle do. Be nice to know where it is coming from though and see if we could put it to any use.”

The buffalo yielded nearly 475 pounds of meat. We had steaks for dinner three days running. I even made gravy from the pan drippings and put it over some dried kibble for the dogs. The only thing I really missed was fresh greens. Donovan agreed and mentioned, “I miss the rabbit food now and again myself. I think I’ve got a plan to fix that for you.”

He took me into a side chamber to the big cave and showed me a surprise. “When I was spelunking around down here I found this room only needed a little cleaning to make it useful. I’m guessing that somebody in the family might have had a little side business growing an alternative botanical item,” he said with a wink. “These are the kind of grow lights you find in those closet operations. The ground is thawed enough in a few places that I managed to scrape a decent amount of topsoil and added some of that compost you’ve been working on and put it into these wooden boxes I built.”

Fiddling with the lamps he continued, “We’ll have two power options to light these up. First is solar but depending on the weather that isn’t going to be as reliable as we need. So I also built this bicycle generator. The mirrors I’ve mounted there and there should help to magnify the light. We can plant those seeds we found and hopefully at least a few of them will germinate. We may not be able to eat the first crop because they’ll need to go to seed but eventually …”

Eventually. There is always a lot of that to go around … eventually there will be enough seeds … eventually the projects will get completed … eventually it may warm up again … eventually there will be other people to talk to. There are days when I wonder if eventually will ever get here … and when it does will it all have been worth it. But that night we celebrated in our own fashion and in Donovan’s words had a good ol’ time doing it. It was the pinnacle of a wonderful week. And it made what happened the next day even more devastating if possible.

We’d gone down near the river to check things out and to do a little training. The river was a roaring mess in the middle where it was running mean and fast, the current eating away at the thick ice that went all the way to the clay-filled banks on both sides of the bend. An unusually strong gust of wind snatched Donovan’s hat from his head. It didn’t go far, only out onto the ice about four feet. He told me to stay on land and he grabbed a limb and stepped out to snag the hat.

It was like a slow motion reenactment. A large tree being tumbled down river disappeared under the water and then suddenly exploded through a previously solid sheet of ice. Shards and chunks of debris flew everywhere. Donovan, who had just gotten his hat in hand, stumbled when a large chunk of ice came down almost on top of him. The ice he was standing on cracked and he fell sideways hard. Even over the noise I could hear the pop and his groan of pain.

Ice was beginning to crack and sing all along the banks of the bend in the river. I saw the piece that Donovan lay on begin to tip the same time he felt it. He rolled backwards toward the bank but he still went in. I slid down the bank and grabbed him as he popped up with a gasp. I was able to drag him to shore but he was soaked through and I was wet from the knees down. I hugged him to me, grateful beyond words.

Donovan pushed me away and groaned, “My … my leg Emma. We need … need to …”

“Lean on me. Or should I build one of those travois thingies?”

That’s when we heard a rumble.

Looking over my shoulder I saw Donovan’s already pale face go completely white. “Holy … Go Emma! Go! Go! Go!!”

I can still see it like it was just this morning. Can still feel the rumble through my boots as I hauled Donovan up the bank. It was a stampede. I wasn’t thinking clearly, still strung out from the dunk in the river. Looking back I have no idea where I got the strength. Donovan’s size should have made it impossible but somehow I managed to get us to an outcropping of granite and we hunkered behind it.

Then the animals were on top of us and all we could do was cower. I was praying but I don’t remember what I was asking for. I was just calling out. Suddenly one of the animals skidded down beside us and I got to see what the inside of a buffalo’s skull looked like up close and personal as a big chunk seemed to be missing. Then we saw another go down some fifty feet in front of us right before the helicopter flew above our heads chasing the stampeding herd.

As the last animal ran passed Donovan gasped, “We’ve got to get to some cover. Back to the cave somehow. Into the tree line first.”

But when I tried to help him up he gave a silent scream and nearly fainted. I looked down and saw to my horror that the “pop” that I’d heard when he went down was a compound fracture of his shin. While he was still out of it I grabbed him under his arms and drug him into the trees. I stabilized the leg but knew there was no way that I was going to be able to drag him all the way home that way.

I said a prayer of thanks that we were still in one piece and had left the dogs at the cave but then cursed in frustration when I didn’t see any likely small pine or cedar saplings that were useable for a travois. There were a couple of dry hardwoods saplings but my machete wasn’t cutting them and Donovan had lost his ax off his belt in the river.

I took out the emergency blanket that I kept and the one in his pack too and used them to try and stave off shock and hypothermia, roused him just enough to tell him I’d be back as quickly as I could, kissed his forehead and then took off at a run.

I don’t think I’ve ever done anything like that before or since. I made it to the cave, all but had to kick the dogs to keep them from getting in my way and then ran back outside … only to be slapped in the face by a hard, cold wind. The kind of wind that presaged a bad storm. Listening, I could hear the crackle of electricity high above me in the gray and rolling clouds. I panicked a bit when I realized the first flakes were already blowing on the wind. I had made the run in thirty minutes but I knew the storm would be on us before I could get back to Donovan.

I took off, throwing caution to the wind, praying that what I had in the pack would see us safe and back home before it reached white out conditions. The wind, blowing against me as it did, added fifteen minutes to my time getting back to Donovan and when I did … there was no Donovan.

I searched the area in vain. When I looked down I knew I was in the right location because of the pink I saw there … blood mixed with snow. There was no way that in his condition Donovan could have wandered off. One there was too much blood and two … well, he wouldn’t have willingly left me. I may not know much but I trust that is a rock solid fact.

Then I thought to look for the buffalo by the outcrop and it was gone as well. I cursed myself for a fool and realized I hadn’t covered the tracks we had made when I had “hidden” Donovan in the forest. I’ll rot for that to the end of my days.

He’s gone. Alive? I don’t know. He was badly hurt, in shock, and had lost a lot of blood. The helicopter people took him … I think. I’m not sure. All I know is that he is gone and it’s been four months and if he’d been able to come back he would have. I know he would have. Of that there is no doubt. He promised he’d never betray me and leaving me when I needed him most would have been a major betrayal.

I barely remember, much less understand, how I made it back to the cave. It’s like I could hear Donovan’s voice ringing in my ear to keep my inner drama queen under control and do what he’d been teaching me all these months. The dogs helped me to get my boots and socks off and we all curled together in the bed for warmth. It was their needs rather than my own that kept me going during the week long blizzard. And during the blizzards that continued to come after that. It seems it had been nothing more than an “Indian Summer” that had warmed the earth … just long enough to remind us what it used to feel like before Impact Day.

It was a month before I really awoke to myself and another one before I could pass a day without crying several times. I learned that talking to yourself is sometimes the only thing that keeps you sane. I learned to downsize my cooking to feed only one … and two growing dogs. In three I’d finally come to accept my situation and was strong enough to do most of what Donovan had done for me in the past without collapsing in exhaustion mid way through the evening meal.

And then I started getting sick. I thought it was the food, but the dogs weren’t sick. I thought it was just depression and loneliness, both of which I was all but wallowing in. When I realized I was only sick in the mornings I put it down to stress and not sleeping properly … for a while anyway. But then I looked at the calendar and the most amazing thing happened.

What should scare me spitless is just about the only thing that is giving me the will to live. I have purpose again. I know that, God willing, my loneliness will come to an end in about six months. I can stand it that long … I think. And sometimes, when I let myself, I imagine what Donovan would think and what he would say, and I treasure those imaginings up because it will be just about the only thing I’ll have to give his child.

Chapter Seventeen

2010-03-19T14:09:00.001-07:00

Chapter 17

Lately it’s been storming more often than it hasn’t. I guess winter is truly here to stay. For how long we have no idea. It is so cold that it almost hurts to breathe when we are outside.

We have been exploring a little further from our cave. A storm had just ended and we felt safe going beyond our last exploration point and this took us over the next hill. It was tough going for both of us. Donovan could have made better time if he hadn’t had to wait for me but the snow in places came up to my waist and when I fell in it took Donovan’s help to get me out. The little hollow we discovered didn’t take near the beating that ours did though there was damage enough up on the ridge. We finally made it to the bottom of the steep, tree-covered area to find a short bridge that crossed what appeared to be a shallow gully. The bridge was damaged on one side but we didn’t pay too much attention to that because everything is damaged these days. About half way across a brutal slap of wind caught me in mid-step and I lost my footing, going over the damaged area of the bridge where the railings were missing.

I braced myself for impact with water but I had forgotten that there was nothing but ice. What I hit was neither water nor ice. It made that distinctive “thump” you hear when something lands on the hood of a vehicle.

Donovan started to scramble after me before I had even finished falling. I was trying to decide which I felt more; thankful that I wasn’t hurt or irritated that that sort of stuff always seems to happen to me. As I was grumping my way through being thankful – not the best compromise – Donovan and I were brushing the thick snow off of whatever I had fallen onto. I finally cleared the foot of snow away from a section when I was startled into a soundless scream. I back pedaled into Donovan, spilling us both into the true bottom of what must have been a runoff creek during certain times of year.

Donovan caught my shoulders and asked, “Hey, you OK?”

I drew a deep breath and wish I hadn’t. The air was way far on the other side of crisp. I coughed a little and then said, “Yeah. Donovan I … I think it’s like those other cars.” I was referring to the cars we salvaged from after we left the bunker all that time ago.

Donovan crawled back onto the hood of a large, nose-down vehicle and brushed away more snow to look inside. “Looks like three … no four … adult-sized males. All but one dressed in hunter’s gear. Vehicle is a … Ford Explorer I think, but it’s been modified. There’s a layer of ash sitting directly on the car’s finish and it has eaten the decal off. It’s a Ford of some type, likely an older explorer model. Stay back Emma.” He proceeded to try and open the driver’s side door.

He couldn’t so he busted out the window and avoiding the corpses as much as possible tried to determine what had happened. When he pulled his head out I saw him in true security chief mode, something I hadn’t seen in quite a while.

“The damage is primarily to the front driver’s side quarter panel and the front bumper area where the vehicle landed in mud. It’s frozen in place. There is also solid ice all in the front floor board encasing the corpses’ legs. There’s no water in the gully now but if I had to guess I would say that there was water when the vehicle went in. Driver’s front wheel is probably a spare; it’s different from the other three tires. It’s bald and showing tread. Both front tires are flat; could be from impact or it could be the cause of the accident. All four corpses show significant damage with associated blood loss. The corpses in the front driver’s and front passenger seats were not wearing seat belts. Corpse three was wearing a seat belt but it looks like he had significant head trauma. See where the passenger door’s window is spidered and blood on the inside? Corpse number four … that would be why they were on the road most likely. He had a significant pre-mortem injury. There was some attempt made to bandage his chest; it is completely blood encrusted. He was strapped in using two of the three rear seat belts and his head was in the lap of his rear seat mate.”

Donovan sighed and then said, “How does this sound? Four hunters back in the woods and one has an accident. Definitely something life threatening from the look of the blood loss. They call out, no one answers their plea for help or they can’t get a signal or something. They try to bring their friend out themselves, something happens on the bridge and they go off into the water filled gully. No one ever comes to check on them so here they remain.”

“Could they have been blown off the bridge post Impact?”

“I … don’t think so. No side panel damage on the other side of the vehicle.”

“Then I guess without any other proof your explanation is as good as we are going to get.”

Donovan grunted, “Here, come up here and help me hold this camper top open. Grab that rail down by your feet. We’ll use it as a prop.”

“Hmm. No luggage, no camping gear. Here are a couple of guns but that’s it. Let’s see if we can follow the road backwards and see where they came from. But not too far in case a storm comes up.”

“The last one ended last night. We’ve got a couple of days until the next one.”

“Never assume darling. Just as soon as you think you know what the weather is going to do, it’ll change track on you and leave you up the creek. As vicious as these storms are getting I don’t want to get caught out in one. As it is I need to make time to further reinforce the barricade door.”

The road was fairly easy to follow. The only gap in the trees turned into what looked like a narrow and winding, snow-covered lane. Around the second bend a fairly expensive hunting lodge rose out of the rocky ground. It had some exterior damage but significantly less than any other standing building we have seen. Two additional snow-covered vehicles were parked in a covered parking area that had been built of the same stone as the house. The roof was collapsed from where a large tree had fallen on one end destroying the snow mobiles that we saw there. Donovan had a few choice words to say about that tragedy. Then we broke into the house and started looking around.

I found him about ten minutes later after we went in separate directions, “Donovan?”

“Yeah, I know. If I could find a sled we’d take some of this stuff back with us.”

“Can you make some out of skis?”

“Skis? I suppose.” He was only half way listening to me and then he turned around real quick. “Hey, did you find skis?”

“Yeah, they look like skis … sorta,” and I handed him what I had found.

“Older but these are definitely cross-country skis.”

“There are five or six pairs down there. Poles too.”

“What are you making such a face for?”

Curling my lip in disgust, “It smells really funky down there.”

Donovan followed me down a flight of stairs to a finished basement that didn’t have any windows or door to the outside.

“Smells like summer in a kennel down here only … I don’t know something else too,” he muttered from behind the sleeve he put over his mouth a nose.

About that time we heard something in the wall. Without warning I felt something clamp onto my leg. Looking down I screamed at the top of my lungs and started kicking but it wouldn’t come off.

“Hold still!”

“Oh God, get it off. Get it off!!”

Then another one attacked Donovan as he bent to try and help me. He was wrestling, trying to get the thing off his shoulder. Three other shapes lunged out of the dark, both of them tearing into the horror that was attached to my leg and nearly shredding it. I helped Donovan to rip off the one that was on him and threw it away where it was pounced on and shaken like a rag doll. But there was more rustling and we quickly retreated up the steps. The three shapes followed us but not quickly enough, one of them was attacked right below the top step. Donovan reached down and pulled the animal up and then detached the two attackers and broke their necks, but it was too late.

At our feet lay a terrier. A main artery had been bitten and it didn’t take long for the poor thing to bleed to death. We tried to save it but it was no use. It licked our hands and whined submissively but she was just here one moment and gone the next.

I was in tears, “Oh Donovan.” I sat on my haunches covered in dog blood. The two other dogs stared with hackles raised at the now closed basement door alternately growling at the basement and growling at us. But they were shivering too. Donovan grabbed a cover off of the nearby sofa and wrapped them both together and as nasty as they were he still stuffed them inside his jacket. Neither dog seemed to know what to make of it but the warmth seemed to reassure them.

I looked up from where I was still on the floor and found myself looking at a portrait of a man standing beside a fence with two dogs almost identical to the ones we had found.

“Rat terriers.”

The non sequiter threw me off. “What?”

“They’re rat terriers. Looks like the guy in the picture bred show dogs of that breed.”

I finally noticed the trophies and ribbons that adorned the wall. He continued, “These two don’t look like much more than puppies. Look how small they are. The one that … that died was a female, probably their mother. You can tell she’s had puppies. The sire dog could have died down there looking for food for his pack. I don’t see any sign of another dog and the smell isn’t bad up here.”

“Why would he leave his dogs like that?!” I cried, still upset.

“Emma … Emma. Think darlin’. Dog vs. injured human … the man probably shut his dogs down there with plenty of food and water thinking he’d be back for them. He had to get the injured man to medical care or he was going to die.”

“Yeah, I guess. Sorry about … about not thinking. It just sounds awful to leave your animals like that. I’m surprised they didn’t starve to death.”

“Some pups may have, or may have fallen to the rats. I’m not going down there to look for bones to find out one way or the other. I’m sure that the terriers took their fair share to dine on after their dog food ran out. The rat terrier is the perfect foe to go up against an army of those devils. I read somewhere that a rat terrier cleared a barn of over five thousand rats in a single day. Just try and not think about it for a while. I’ll bury the dog. You look around but be careful, and if you start smelling or hearing anything you get out of there.”

“Donovan?”

“Yeah?”

“Where do the rats come from? We haven’t seen any up here? We haven’t seen any in the cave? Thank goodness for that by the way. In fact we have seen any animals until now.”

Donovan squinted his eyes and scratched his head. My questions sometimes drive him a little crazy. He says I give him a headache making him think too much. I think it is because he doesn’t like not being able to answer them. “We know the cold and lack of food have a lot to do with that. We might have some hibernating animals but they could have died in their sleep of starvation. But the true omnivores … primarily rodents … may have just moved underground and tunneled to find food. They would have started with roots and then moved deeper as the cold settled in … basements, sewers, etc. Enough furry bodies and you have a pretty good heat source that is self regulating. Obviously the rats here are getting desperate. They are also pretty blood thirsty which suggests to me that either they are cannibalizing their weak or that they’ve been surviving off of scavenging corpses. But they don’t appear to be desperate enough to risk the cold. And we’ve likely thinned their numbers too. The cold and lack of food, possible cannibalism, depravation by the dogs, seems like it would keep their numbers down.”

Donovan ran out of hypothetical answer and it was enough to satisfy my sometimes uncontrollable curiosity; we both turned to do what we said. It didn’t take long for Donovan to cover the small corpse with rocks and then come back inside. The puppies didn’t want to leave his coat so he just carried them around. Every once in a while they would wiggle around or stick their nose out of his collar but for the most part they stayed docile.

Once he caught up with me on the second floor he asked, “Anything?”

“Lots of stuff but no rats. Not rat poop, no rat sounds, nothing.”

“Looks like I was correct. Cold probably keeps them underground. That means that anything we find on the first and second floor should be OK. I hate to say it but I need to go back to the basement to get the other skis.”

“No you won’t.”

“Emma …,” he started.

I know he doesn’t like it when I get over protective but this time I was right. “Seriously, there is a room downstairs that has all sorts of sports equipment in it including more skis.”

“Was there a kitchen?”

“Yeah, I didn’t want to look by myself.”

“Let’s go look together then. That will be the first stuff we have to take if there is anything.”

There wasn’t much that was salvageable. The cans were all frozen and misshapen. Nothing in the frig or freezer was any good. The bottles of booze where all shattered where they had frozen. There was some staple items like salt, pepper, and sugar as well as some other seasonings. We kept looking as we explored the rest of the house but we didn’t hit pay dirt until Donovan noticed that the wall between the master bedroom and the connected master bath on the second floor didn’t match. He looked for a second and then jerked down the whole clothing rack and threw it onto the bed where I started pawing through the clothing looking for anything worth the trouble of hauling back.

“Whoever did the man’s security wasn’t real smart. I noticed it within three minutes of entering.” He then put a booted foot through the back panel of the closet to reveal a small storage area. “Well, lookie here.”

It looked a bit like a panic room only a very flimsy one. There was some closed circuit security cameras and some kind of communication devices but it was useless at this stage. There was a supply of Mountain House foods in #10 cans and some other emergency food. Also three different sized ammo cans filled with bullets. Another box revealed some of those flimsy, roll up solar chargers. Donovan stuffed the puppies back down his coat collar while he said, “Looks like the guy tried to be prepared but I don’t know, doesn’t look like much. There is a water filter but no water; I see cans but no can opener. No way to boil water to reconstitute this food either. Nothing to provide any kind of warmth or light except that lantern … which the idiot would have suffocated if he had lit it in this enclosed space even if there had been fuel for it … and that folded camp chair that looks about as comfortable as an iron maiden. The only thing good I can say of the man is that he thought of his dogs … look at that pallet of freeze dried dog kibble.”

“Easy dear … we can’t all be chief of security for a highly classified government survival bunker.”

All I got in return was a snort and a shoulder bump which was about all the comment was worth. We hauled the small stash to the top of the stairs and left it there and then tried to figure out how we were going to get the stuff home. There were things in the house that I practically lusted after but the food – human and canine – took priority.

Going through the sports gear we found a couple of large snow saucers and a good sized children’s sled. Had any other human beings seen us we would have made the cover of some Ripley’s Believe It Or Not type magazine. Donovan had the sled loaded with several cases of food from the panic room and I had some floppier bags piled onto the two saucers. The skis we tied onto the back of our packs. And I shoved a few odds and ends as well as the rolled up solar chargers into my pack. You talk about trying to get used to something … I tried to not trip as I walked – first uphill and then down – with long skis attached to my back, pulling two snow saucers tied tandem. I felt ridiculous and clumsy so I can just imagine what I looked like. But we did it.

Home again, home again, jiggety-jig. The puppies were positively fascinated with our living quarters and then promptly found a corner and piddled in it. I looked at Donovan he sighed. “Fine. I’ll take puppy duty this time.” They’ve been a lot easier to house train than I expected but the first couple of days were not fun. When it is storming and they can’t go out, they have an area of the outside cavern that they can do their business on. It is covered in astro turf we ripped out of the little house near the cave so all we have to do is roll it up and take it out and shake it off. It’s still nasty but given how much fun the puppies are and how amazing it is that they survived we aren’t going to complain.

We considered trying to go back for another load that first day but it would have been dark before we got back and neither one of us wanted to stay a night in that house. Donovan bathed the dogs while I fixed us all dinner. We had our soup straight. For the puppies I put some of the freeze dried kibble into a bowl and then dribbled some of the broth over it to rehydrate it. They didn’t know what to make of it at first; they’d obviously been used to eating fresh kills. But in no time they were wolfing the food down and then sniffing around our chair. Donovan warned me not to be tempted to feed them from the table or it might be impossible to break them of the bad habit.

The puppies wouldn’t settle down. They kept smelling and looking around. I think they were looking for their mother. Finally they were just exhausted but were still too upset and started whining and were on the border of howling when Donovan said, “Emma, where’s that blanket that I had them in inside my coat?”

He took the blanket and made them a bed in a box near the fire. They scratched at it and then curled up together. I don’t know if they ever quite went all the way to sleep. I imagine being stuck down in that basement with those monsters they learned to always been on guard.

The next morning we got up and the puppies refused to be left behind so Donovan carried them in his coat again and we got three trips made to and from the house. The last one didn’t see us home until thirty minutes after night fall and it was so cold it felt like ice crystals were forming in my brain.

“Emma, I don’t want to risk that again. We either get an earlier start or we keep our trips down to two.”

We got three trips in the next day by starting earlier and simply accepting that we’d have to take the dogs with us if we wanted to go in a timely manner; but the day after that a storm slammed into us before we could even question whether we’d be able to make another trip or not.

The next four days were spent training the dogs and adding the new stuff to our inventory. The storm broke and we went back to the house. Two more days and we had everything out of it that was remotely useful that we could haul using our eccentric form of transportation. While Donovan was looking around to see if there was any way we could transport the wood stove from the older of the two kitchens the lodge had, I stood at the big windows that overlooked what probably was the river but is currently frozen and snowed over. I blinked thinking my eyes were playing tricks on me.

“Bu … bu … bu …” I stammered.

Donovan asked me what I was yammering about and I hit him with a small decorative pillow from the window seat.

“Hey! You’re the one that is stuttering and I’m the one that gets hit?”

I pointed to the window and he looked out, did a double take and then went, “Bu .. bu …”

“Yeah, that’s what I said! Now how do we kill one?”

That rather naive comment broke Donovan from the spell he was under. He looked at me incredulously and then started laughing. I’m glad he was so amused but the truth of the matter is I knew that if the Native people had been able to do it with arrow and spear, surely we could take one down with a gun.

“Girl, I swear, with you around I’m going get a hernia from busting a gut laughing. You want me to go out and kill you a buffalo.”

A little chagrined at how blood thirsty I had been … it’s been a long time since we’d had any fresh meat … I blushed and said, “I know it sounds crazy but …”

He gave me a one armed hug indicating he was just fooling and then said, “Girl, give me a chance to think. Maybe I can get you that buffalo blanket you are wanting.”

“Forget the blanket, I want the steak.”

He laughed and then stared out the window with a serious look on his face. While he did his contemplative thing, I was wondering where they could have come from. Donovan must have heard my wheels turning because he said, “Buffalo are indigenous to the US – they’re actually bison by the way – but they don’t roam like they did in the early 1800s when over fifty million of them roamed freely all over. As a boy I used to love to watch movies about the west and how the pioneers and Native Americans lived. I was out to Yellowstone a few years back and was amazed at how many there were in the park alone. People had smaller herds all over the US, and they were used to cross-breed in some specialty cattle markets to make an animal called a ‘beefalo.’ I know for a fact, growing up, they had some buffalos at the museum over near Land Between the Lakes. These could have bred from that population or they could have been pushed east back into their former habitat by the results of Impact Day. There may be no telling for sure. How many you count?”

“I see …. Mmmm … at least four dozen.”

“Yeah. That’s what I get more or less. I suppose taking one won’t impact their breeding cycle and … what the …?”

About the time he was agreeing to hunt the big animals a herd of reindeer … I swear, it really was reindeer … walked into our line of sight. He turned around suddenly and headed into the office where all of the trophies and ribbons were and looked more closely at the pictures and pulled open a couple of the filing cabinets.

“Well I’ll be John Brown. This guy might have been an idiot when it came to survival but he had a good head for business. Check this out Emma. This wasn’t just some rich guy’s house but was a commercial hunting lodge with all the specially permitting required. Somebody had a heck of an operation here. You have the lake down below,” he said pointing to where the lake would have been if everything wasn’t frozen and snowed over. “And up here you’ve got prime hunting land. Explains more than it doesn’t. These papers show he stocked a few exotics so there had to have been a tall fence encompassing the property. Must be blown over and buried under the snow. The animals that have survived are the exotics that can make it in the bitterly cold weather … I see invoices for big horn sheep, antelope … yeah, and here’s one for buffalo … and another for mule deer and reindeer … and elk. There might be more than one reason why we haven’t seen any local game if he imported any exotic predators. We’re going to need to be more careful when we are out and about. A hungry animal is going to be a dangerous animal. The rats were proof of that.”

Hunting had to wait another day because we weren’t prepared. Only in the movies do you just go pick off a big animal like you are going to go get your hair done. We still haven’t gotten a buffalo though it is on Donovan’s list of things to do. We had enough just to do just to finish clearing the lodge of what we could. Instead of reindeer or buffalo, Donovan brought down a medium-sized elk. We smoked and dried a lot of it and froze a good bit of it too. I never realized how big those things were until I had to process one.

I vaguely understood the whole science project but without any books to follow the procedures I had to completely rely on Donovan’s experience he gained by helping his aunt and uncle. He built a smoker and dried a lot of the meat into jerky. Using an old sausage grinder I made a bunch of pounds of ground elk burger and made patties with it and then froze it outside. This was stored in the “ice room” that Donovan and I built by bringing in blocks of ice – made using clean water from the underground spring and frozen in same shape/size containers at night – and placing them in one of the smallest caverns that led off of the big storage cavern. We also cooked some of the chunks in soup bases and stews and then froze it in plastic freezer containers and these were also stored in the ice room.

The puppies went nuts for the offal and we froze what they didn’t eat immediately. This saved us having to feed them our own food supplies. Donovan and I even boiled the bones down for broth and froze that for future use as well.

The night after spending all day processing the elk Donovan and I shared an incredible elk steak. First we marinated it with olive oil, soy sauce, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, minced garlic, onion powder, ground ginger, and pepper. Then we grilled it over a drip pan to catch the juices and keep them from falling into our fire place and making a mess. The drippings I poured over the dogs’ kibble. As I’m sitting here writing this my mouth is watering just remembering how good it was. For once even the dogs were satisfied and didn’t come begging for scraps.

To go with the steak I made mashed potatoes, fried corn, corn meal biscuits, and I fixed a rice pudding for dessert. The dogs weren’t the only ones that went to bed with full bellies. Donovan acted like an old bear that was ready for hibernation. So much so that his belt wasn’t the only thing that loosened up after dinner. We were sitting on the sofa staring at the fire, almost too tired to go to bed, when he made that noise in his throat that is a cross between a growl and a grunt that usually comes right before he says something incredible chauvinistic and then mumbled, “A woman that can put a meal on the table like that is worth going buffalo hunting for.” He closed the statement with a snore. I came very close to driving my elbow into his full belly but then I caught myself and realized that we really have returned to a chauvinistic world.

I thought about it and I’m more and more convinced that some men used to almost fantasize with glee that the world would one day devolve into complete chaos just so that they would get their shot at living some male fantasy of what they thought their existence could be if the modern world would just stop emasculating them. I don’t think that Donovan ever had that problem. He’s always been a chauvinist pig to a certain extent – which is kind of adorable in reasonable doses now that I’ve gotten to know him better – but I wonder about some of the other men I’ve known in my life. My dad? Heck, he was always a real man in my eyes and what I measured all other men against. Mr. Epstein? Well … not exactly my cup of tea but again, he never seemed to have a problem with who he was and was always full of self confidence. On the other hand I’ve seen some of the boyfriends my former roommates had and they always struck me as either over the top and trying too hard to prove what a he-man they were or they came off really … uh, whipped to put it politely. Now whether that was their own fault or the fault of the women they choose to hang with isn’t my concern but it still drove home the fact that I owed Donovan quite a bit for my continued survival.

The next day that topic was still on my mind; enough that I would have walked into a low hanging ledge in the spring room if Donovan hadn’t grabbed my hoodie and jerked me backwards real quick.

“Girl, where is your mind? You do realize you just about knocked yourself out on that rock?” Donovan set the wind up flashlight on a handy ledge and had turned me around, tilted my chin up and was looking in my eyes like he was checking to see if I was sober or stoned.

I brushed his hand away and said, “I have a lot on my mind is all. Thanks for saving me … again … another bruise I don’t need.”

Something in my tone or comment must have caught his attention. Donovan plays at being a Neanderthal but I’m slowly learning that some of that is camouflage that hides a really sharp mind. “Hmmm. You got a problem with me saving you?”

“No. I just wish you didn’t have to do it so often. I’m beginning to wonder exactly what I bring to the table … between us I mean. I know the … the sex and all … but I mean more than that. What makes you want to stay around? Put up with the things I do that I know drive you crazy.” I shrugged lifted the buckets I had filled and put them on the yoke I used to carry the heavy buckets with.

“What’s got you worrying at that again?” I expected him to be impatient about it but he honestly seemed interested if not exactly concerned about the topic.

“Just thinking.”

“Girl, when you think you can drive the oxygen out of a room. You worry more stuff to death than anyone I’ve ever met. Come on. Help me bring in some wood.”

I tried to let it go, I really did. Bringing in wood while keeping track of the pups takes a lot of energy and concentration. They naturally wanted to be outside quite a bit now that they’d discovered it but they couldn’t because of their paws. I’d asked Donovan about making coats and boots for them and that is one of those times he nearly “busted a gut.”

For a hearty lunch/dinner I made a big pot of wheat berry chili that used a couple of different kinds of beans, some of the ground elk, canned diced tomatoes, some dried corn, seasonings, and a cup of whole wheat berries to piece all of the other ingredients out even further. I made fried cornmeal cakes to go with it. I finished cleaning up the last meal of the day and poured the drippings from frying the elk over the pups’ kibble and then sat down to work on the inventories. I was determined to stop feeling sorry for myself.

I guess I had been working for about thirty minutes – work is still a balm for my troubles even if I’m doing better about keeping it under control – when Donovan came up behind me, leaned over and slowly closed my notebooks.

“What?” I asked.

“Come on. We’ve both been working all day and the fire is warm and sofa is soft.”

I didn’t want to upset him by turning down his request to snuggle so I willingly put things away and went to sit with him.

“Now isn’t this better than going blind looking at those endless lists you make?”

I smiled a small smile and said, “Of course it is but what I want isn’t always what I need. I’ll have to work on those inventories tomorrow instead of finishing them tonight.”

“You’ll have time enough. There’s another storm brewing from the feel of the wind when I brought in that last load of wood. But what I want tonight is to know what you meant this morning. And don’t give me that look, you know exactly what I’m asking about.”

“Donovan, it isn’t …”

“Don’t even start. You’ve got a permanent line between your eyebrows. It gets deeper every time you start worrying at something. Now out with it. I can’t fix it if I don’t know what it is.”

That hit a nerve. “That’s just it Donovan, I’m tired of you constantly having to fix things. I fall down in the snow and can’t get up without your help. I fall off a bridge and you have to run and save me. Stupid rats nearly chew my leg off and you get attacked trying to save me. I can’t carry my share of the wood. I didn’t even know what to do with that elk even though I’m the one that instigated the hunt to begin with. And all of that is just in the last couple of days.”

“Are you keeping track or something? And what do you mean instigated …”

“I know I sound like a whiney brat. I’m just tired of feeling useless … being useless. I wasn’t like this before. I worked my rear off to pay my own way. Even in the bunker I did my best to pay my own way without compromising who I was any more than I could help. Now look at me. I’d be dead so many times over if it wasn’t for you.”

“And you resent that?”

“Yes … no … argh! That’s not what I mean.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“I mean I want to save you right back!”

My energy level was kicking way up and I had a bad case of the fidgets. I tried to get off the sofa and walk it off only to have Donovan grab me from behind and drag me onto his lap. “Girl, you save me a little bit every day, every morning when we wake up together, with every idea I come up with to try and make things better for us, every time I come close to getting too serious and you say something outrageous whether you mean to or not. You save me every time you look at me with those big beautiful eyes like I mean something besides a warm body that will put up with your cold feet at night.”

“I do not have cold feet … or I wouldn’t if you wouldn’t hog the covers. And what does that have to do with anything anyway?” I tried to wiggle off and he only held me closer.

“You are worse at wiggling than those puppies are. Your energy amazes me Emma. You throw yourself into everything with a confidence that drives me crazy. You are willing to try just about everything even when you know you failed at it the other times. When you fell off that bridge my heart nearly leapt out of my chest. Look at me, I don’t do the romantic thing Emma, you know that … but if I did, I’d want to do it for you. You make me feel needed, wanted, like I matter … not just my muscles but me. I can’t say for other men Emma, but that’s what I’ve been missing. It’s why my marriage failed. She didn’t need me, no matter what she said in the beginning.”

“Oh Donovan … you are important to me. I just worry …”

“There’s that word again,” Donovan interrupted.

“Yeah, I know, it’s just … what happens when I no longer make you feel like you matter but like I’m a burden? The Major or Capt. Chandler would never have …”

“Nope, they wouldn’t have. In fact, they nearly left me to the best end they could imagine for me. You didn’t. You wouldn’t even in the face of everyone else’s objections. I can’t pretend that I understood it then – have a hard enough time just accepting it even now – but … but I’m glad you did Girl. Life, even under our current circumstances, is definitely worth living in a way I’m still learning to appreciate. Just stay with me Emma. Don’t turn away. Don’t create a problem that doesn’t exist. I can’t pretend to know what the future holds, but whatever it is, I know with you in it it will continue to be worth living.”

And he claims he isn’t romantic. Honestly … men.

Chapter Sixteen

2010-03-19T14:08:00.001-07:00

Chapter 16

Been a while since I’ve sat down to write; been too tired most nights, or busy. I’ve been confused and feeling like I only understood about half of what has been going on. And guilty. Guilty pleasures. Pleasures, guilty or otherwise, wasn’t exactly in my vocabulary before this point in my life.

The morning after I last wrote Donovan (I helped) fitted another door for the entrance from our living quarters into the big cavern. Even as tight as Donovan made the fit there was still a cold draft that would come from under the doors so I made draft stoppers, filled them full of dried corn, and laid them along the bottom of the doors. Doing that allowed us to keep the living quarters in the 60s on most days. At night it gets colder but it is still warmer than it has been.

The storm let up about two days after I tripped and banged my head. Donovan stabilized the barricade to the outside with several overlapping pieces of sheet metal. He isn’t happy with it at all but finally let it go because we have so many other things that need doing.

“Donovan, it may not be as pretty as the other doors but it is secure and keeps the wind and snow out.”

“Just because something is utilitarian or plain doesn’t mean that it can’t be nice looking.” When he saw my mouth hanging open he said defensively, “Uncle Shem taught me.”

“I’m … Donovan my dad made stuff too so I know what you mean. I just didn’t … I’m sorry. That was rude. You just surprised me.”

“What? I’m too big a redneck to use the word utilitarian or expect stuff to look nice?” he said as he curled his lip in disgust.

“Hey! That’s not what I meant! Not at all,” I said defending myself. “I meant it just sounded like something my dad would have said and it just … caught me off guard. I just don’t want you to think I’m projecting on you, or have a Daddy-complex, or anything else like that.”

“Oh.” It sounded at least like he accepted that he might have been a tad on the defensive side. “So, your dad made stuff too? Carpenter? Metalworker? You never said.”

I smiled remembering, “More like a Jack-of-all-trades. If Momma wanted it Daddy would most times be able to figure out how to fix it for her. I … sometimes … sometimes I miss them so much that it hurts. And in some ways you remind me of my dad more than anyone else ever has. I just don’t want you to think that is the only reason why I like you and …”

“So … you like me do you? How much?” Donovan asked with that wicked look he’ll get.

See, that is part of what was driving me nuts. I knew what I was doing wasn’t something I necessarily should be doing or would have done under any other circumstances. Nothing had been said about forever. Nothing had been made permanent. We never talked about much beyond the next few days in our lives. Yet on the other hand … I liked it; and I liked him. I knew there was a good chance what I was doing was wrong but I wanted it – reality or illusion – so much I did it anyway.

That’s not all we did by any stretch. We worked. We worked hard and we worked long and a lot of nights all we did was fall asleep, too tired to do much but snuggle together for warmth.

As soon as we could get outside I helped to find several straight cedar and pine trees. We only took the ones that had already blown down because we didn’t want to thin the forest out any more. The cedars and pines Donovan sat aside in the big cavern for later and then we got serious about gathering more wood.

Dragging those suckers was no easy task. Up and down the snow drifts. Sometimes one or the other of us would fall in because the snow wasn’t as packed as it appeared. The worst time was when Donovan went down to his armpits and got tangled up in a tree that had been leaned over in the storm but hidden by the snow; the “hill” turned out to be a covered up tree. Every time I tried to dig him out he just sank a little further. We finally managed to get him out but he was terribly chilled and we were both exhausted. We stayed out of that area afterwards and stuck to the fallen trees closer to the cave entrance.

After we had a large pile of trees, Donovan handled chopping the bigger pieces of hardwood in the mornings while I pulled the branches that I could over to the cave entrance. He chopped the branches for a little while after lunch then we would stack for the rest of the day. We stuffed the outer room as full of wood as we could; just in time too because another storm came out of nowhere. We were snug in the cave with the doors to close out the cold … mostly close out the cold; it still appears I won’t be running around in shorts and a tank top any time in the near future.

And without the hard work of finding and chopping wood there was time for other stuff. Most of it was constructive but not all of it. First thing I did was figure out a way to have a bath and wash my hair.

Donovan had found an old-fashioned hip tub under a pile of what he thought was scrap metal in the big cavern. There were also a couple of those really large igloo coolers, one of which was one of those old metal ones. The plastic one we are using for drinking water that has been processed all the way through our filtration system. The metal one is what we keep our wash water in. The wash water one is on a small metal table next to the fireplace. There was also an old cast iron kettle in there and that is what I use to get really hot water with. I mix the hot water from the kettle with dippers of water from the metal cooler.

Donovan for his part took three old wooden screen doors and then used some smaller hinges to connect the doors together to make a self-standing screen. In the holes where the screen would have normally gone he nailed sections of old tin roofing that he had snipped to size. Then he took an awl and poked holes so that they made this really cool design. It looked like those old metal lanterns that you would find at the craft bazaars around the holidays. Those lanterns went for an arm and a leg – I ought to know, I bought one for Mrs. Epstein’s birthday – so I can’t imagine what a screen like this would have gone for.

The first bath I took the water turned disgusting. I was so embarrassed that I wouldn’t even let Donovan help empty the bucket. My hair took three washes and soaks with shampoo (from the bunker supplies) and then a rinse with vinegar (from the stuff we found in the cave) before I was satisfied with it.

I hadn’t realized how heavy with oil and dirt my hair had become. I felt like I’d gotten rid of a huge load. I couldn’t run around with a wet head so I pulled a chair near the fire, combed my hair out, and then started to doze while it dried. I woke up to find Donovan playing with the curls that the fire had caused across my forehead.

He was right in my face and startled me, “Oh! Oh no, how long have I been asleep?”

“Not long.”

“Long enough; my hair is mostly dry. I hope the water is still warm. Let me move and I’ll let you bathe and …”

“You don’t have to move.”

“Um. Uh.” I must have turned six shades of red. Even I could feel my face getting hot.

“Emma …,” he started, but then he just shook his head.

“What?”

“Girl, are you ever going to get over acting like this?”

“Like … like what exactly?” I thought he was referring to the fact that I’d fallen asleep rather than getting something constructive done.

“Like I’m a stranger.”

That completely flummoxed me. “I don’t treat you as a stranger. I mean we … you and I … well honestly, you don’t really think I’d do what we do with a stranger do you?” I scooted a few inches off, I was getting upset.

“Now see, that’s what I mean. You’ve got to have your space to make you feel safe, like you expect me to take something I don’t have any right to.”

“Donovan, either I don’t understand what you mean or I’m in way over my head. I’m learning as I go here. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” When he gave me a look, “OK, I haven’t been living in a pumpkin my whole life, I just mean how I’m supposed to act. How … I mean … Donovan, I just wonder sometimes if you are only making up to me and stuff because I’m … you know … the only game in town. And I like you … like I’ve never felt this way before and I just don’t want to mess it up making you think that I’m a … a floozy … a loose woman. Please be … be patient. I just don’t know how you want me to act.”

“How I want you to act? I’m not asking you to act at all.”

“At least give me some clue how … Just forget it. I’m messing things up.” I really felt like I was putting my foot in it. I was afraid to ask how he felt because I was afraid of getting an answer I didn’t want to hear.

I got up and took the kernels that I had been soaking and made fried corn using the lard as the grease and some powdered butter from our bunker supplies for the flavor. Wasn’t bad at all if I do say so. I also made unleavened bread … Mrs. Epstein taught me that one … and we used a jar labeled blackberry preserves from the cave supplies to sweeten it up. For “dessert” we had some of the so not delicious faux shortbread survival bar.

Donovan was mad at me and was pushing me pretty hard by taking his own bath without any embarrassment while I was trying to cook. I could tell he was just trying to make me react by the look on his face how he was being. He was in a better mood after eating which I was thankful for, but it didn’t last. I’ve dealt with angry guys before but never when it was personal. Daddy … well he was pretty even tempered. It’s not that he didn’t get angry and upset, it’s just that he handled it different; he was sure never angry like that with me. Occasionally disappointed in how I acted or forced to deliver some justifiable parental correction but he was never angry at or with me. Mr. Epstein, I don’t even know if he knew how to get angry; he was always so good natured even with the worst juvenile defendant; it used to drive Laura up a wall. Moshe could get wound up but he was a lot like his dad; or at least the Moshe I knew was like that. I dealt with anger at school and that sort of thing, everyone in public school has; but, just never anything directed am me personally. What Donovan was directing at me was very personal and he was about to make it more so.

I was feeling pretty nervous by the time dinner was over with. I couldn’t sit still. All the dishes were done. I folded what clothes needed folding. I couldn’t really start anything else and Donovan was just sitting there on his pallet by the fire reading some technical manual. I was ready to climb the walls and hang from my feet like a bat.

“Don’t you ever sit still?”

“Sorry.”

A brief growl and Donovan demanded, “Will you stop saying that? Did I ask you to apologize?”

“Sor … uh,” and I closed my mouth on yet another apology.

“You know, you were never like this in the bunker.”

“Donovan you only saw me a few minutes a couple of times a week. How do you know how I acted?”

“The other women talked … gossiped … whatever.”

“You listened to women yakking about other women?” I laughed in disbelief.

“Yeah, well security detail isn’t all 007 and adventure. Sometimes it is just knowing what is going on and trying to prevent it from turning into something it shouldn’t. Besides the Major asked me to keep at an eye on you so there wasn’t a repeat of that incident that put you in the clinic in the beginning.”

That gave me a brief pause and I wondered if I’d ever get to say thank you to the Major. “Well in the bunker I had a lot of work to do, even if it was just busy work. It kept my mind off of things.”

“So what are you trying to not think about?”

“Not making mistakes.”

“Not …?” I could tell he was getting as wound up as I was. “Emma, just sit down and stop turning everything into a drama.”

“I’m not … never mind.” And I did my best to find a spot where I could sit still and not bother him.

I thought I was doing pretty good. I wasn’t squirming or doing anything. Then he had to go and spoil it by saying, “Girl, if you try any harder to not move you are going to freeze that way. Get something to do. You never read your book anymore.”

So I pulled out my Bible and it was like the deck was stacked against me. Every page I opened was like a brand on my skin; 1 Corinthians 6:18-20, 1 Corinthians 7:1-2, 1 Thessalonians 5:22-23, Exodus 22:16-17, Matthew 5:28 … I just couldn’t get away from it. I slammed it shut a lot harder and louder than I had meant to and tried to cover it by getting up and putting it back into the box that I kept my few personal possessions from before in.

“What is your problem now?” Donovan growled finally getting fed up.

“Nothing. I’m sor…”

“Don’t … say … it. If you can’t sit still at least be quiet.”

I was exhausted but unable to find any rest. I got out of the firelight so he couldn’t see me and leaned up against a cabinet we were using to put our dishes and cooking utensils in. Finally I must have hypnotized myself enough that I just fell asleep sitting up. I don’t know how much later it was when Donovan woke me. “Are you crazy on top of everything else?! You’re sitting over here in the coldest corner of the cave and let yourself fall asleep. What am I supposed to do if you get sick?!”

“I’m sor…” POP!

No one had ever hit me. I’d certainly never been slapped before. It wasn’t a little tap either, I tasted copper from where the inside of my cheek got cut on my teeth. I scooted back real fast but only came up against more rock.

“@#$% it!! Now look what you’ve done! I’ve never hit a woman in my life! Why couldn’t you have just … Get away from me!!”

Away from him? Where was I supposed to go? I’d never dealt with anything like that. I felt like I was caving in on myself. I stood up and looked around and couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to do. You’d figure given my personality that I would have gotten angry right back at him but … I just stood there scared and feeling even more alone and uncertain.

“Oh for @#$% sake! Go over there. Lay down near the fire. Just leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone.”

How on Earth I got to sleep that night I don’t know. I woke up the next morning to Donovan in the same place I was last night and he was shivering in his sleep. I didn’t know if it was time to get up or not but I knew I had to get out … outside and breathe no matter what. But I couldn’t just leave him like that so I took my covers and laid them over him. He didn’t wake up so I felt safe trying to escape for a little while. I was still in all my clothes so I grabbed my outdoor gear and snuck out the door to the outer cavern, dressed in the cold which woke me up the rest of the way, and then slid the barricade open so I could step outside.

The sun was just coming up and I stood there and watched it and prayed. It wasn’t a specific prayer. I just needed help and I needed it badly. I didn’t know what to do. Felt so lost. I knew I had to have done something but I wasn’t sure what. I didn’t want to make the same mistake again and I didn’t know how to fix what had already happened.

I brushed some snow off my face and felt the lingering tenderness there. I figured the cold would help with that but it only made it hurt worse. I was about to go back inside when a wild eyed Donovan tumbled about the barricade with his boots unlaced and his jacket only half way on. He saw me and stopped dead in his tracks. He was breathing so heavy that his breath billowed out reminding me a huge steam engine. He looked at me and then blanched.

“You … you …”

“I just needed some air. I’ll start breakfast now.”

He followed me back inside and I was trying not to be afraid, trying not to look and see how angry he was, trying not to feel anything. We brushed off the snow and stomped our boots clean and then he followed me into the living quarters. I felt surrounded.

The room was cold again, the door to the big cavern hanging open. “Uh, I … I thought you were in there. I couldn’t find you. I was calling your name.”

“I was outside; didn’t hear you.”

“Yeah. I … uh … see that now.” He added some wood to the fire and closed both doors. I felt the tension building and did everything I could not to get in his way but he was just there every time I turned around.

“Look, I don’t … have any … excuse. I don’t know what happened last night,” he stumbled along saying. “I don’t expect you to believe me but I’ve … I’ve never hit a woman Emma. It was … it was wrong. Your … your face … I … God Emma, I’ve never hit a woman before.”

I looked at him from the corner of my eye and he really did look traumatized. His face was pale and his eyes big and dark. There were dark circles under his eyes too. He looked, in a really strange way, like he’d hurt himself way more than he’d hurt me.

“Forget about it Donovan. I don’t know what happened last night either. I don’t know what I did wrong. I mean I kind of do but not completely. Next time just tell me what I’m doing wrong. Don’t … don’t hit me again, OK?”

“Emma … I ….” Then he just sunk into a chair we had sat against the wall and sat there staring at his hands.

I made breakfast – instant oatmeal again – and then tried to decide what I was supposed to do. “It … it’s stopped storming. Do you want me to help with the wood or …”

“No. No you stay inside where … I’ll … I just need some space Emma.”

“Oh. OK.” My answered bounced off his back. He was already three quarters through the door to the outside. So much for that; I decided that obviously it was over and neither one of us knew what to do about it or how to continue on. I turned to my beloved stand-by … work. I worked my rear off that day, and the next, trying not to be scared and wondering where it was all leading. I wanted things to go back to where they were, back to the oblivion of living in limbo but still having my guilty pleasures. We barely spoke and the only reason we ate is because our bodies craved the calories and wouldn’t let us sleep otherwise. We weren’t even sleeping next to each other.

The third day it was storming again and we were stuck inside together. I remember feeling so … odd that morning. Like all the light bulbs inside me were going dim. Like the effort to breathe just wasn’t worth it anymore. I went into the big cavern to start digging around, move one pile just to make another one in a different place but not necessarily getting anything better organized. There was this dark corner that was darker than all the rest and I just sat down and let the blackness swallow me up.

I put my head on my knees and sat there for I don’t know how long. I knew the floor was cold but I couldn’t seem to care enough to move even though my rear was betting numb. I could feel the tears on my face but I don’t know if I was there enough mentally to really be experiencing them. I didn’t hear Donovan call my name, or find me, or sit down beside me and put his arms around me.

“I … Emma … I … messed up. I swear I never have hit a woman before. Not even my ex-wife . I don’t know what came over me. Uncle Shem and Aunt Rachel would have disowned me for this. I … I don’t know how to fix this. I … I don’t even know if you want to fix it. Emma?”

“Will you … will you tell me what I’m doing wrong before it gets to that point anymore?”

“Emma you weren’t really doing anything wrong.”

“Then … then why Donovan? Why did you get so angry?”

“I’m not angry at you, I’m angry period … Try and understand this from my side of things. The only reason you are with me is because you don’t think you have any choice. You’re … you’re pacifying me but you aren’t really all that into the relationship. That is what makes me angry.”

“Wait. You think that I … that I’m only doing stuff with you because you think I’m feeling pressured into it?”

“The cave, everything else … it reminds you of Level 5. I guess I didn’t really get it back at the bunker; how much it really affected you. You dream about that place every couple of nights. This cave reminds you of it. I’ve seen you bolt out of here like the hounds of hell are after you, just to get outside. I’ve tried to make it better; I put the doors there, brought in the furniture to make it better … but nothing does. It just seems that you’d rather be anywhere else but here with me.”

Wow. That isn’t what I was thinking at all. I didn’t have a clue that was what he thought. He never showed it. “Donovan … I wasn’t … I wouldn’t …” I stopped trying to pull my head together enough that I didn’t make a hash of this. Even if things were over I at least wanted to try and keep Donovan as a friend.

“I don’t even know where to start but I can tell you that you may be a hunk and this may be a real end of the world situation, but I wouldn’t be doing any of that stuff we used to do if I didn’t want to. I don’t sell myself just to have a place to stay or a protector.” He got a strange look on his face but I continued. “The cave is … it’s nice. I think the stuff you are building is really, really nice.”

“But …”

“But, I’m not sure how invested I’m supposed to be in all of this. I like being with you but at the same time being with you makes me feel guilty. For a while the pleasure of being with you made me forget that I don’t know exactly what kind of relationship this is supposed to be. I don’t know how to play these kinds of games; they are way over my head. What I want doesn’t always line up with what I know I’m supposed to be about.”

“What you are supposed to be about?”

“Donovan, I don’t know if I can even explain it without making this worse.”

“Try.”

“OK, just remember, I warned you.” I took a breath and then took a leap of faith. “Donovan, we aren’t … aren’t … aren’t married. We haven’t got any long term plans. We haven’t made any promises. Heck, I don’t know if I even qualify as your friend anymore. And if I did I don’t know if I can live with just being a friend-with-benefits, it makes me feel … cheap.”

“That’s what all of this hesitancy has been about? The walls?”

“I’m not sure I understand what you mean. I don’t really know what I’m doing or how you want me to act and …”

“Emma, I don’t want you to act. I want you to want to be with me and then everything else will fall in line from there.”

“I do want to be with you. If I didn’t I wouldn’t have cooperated. That’s the problem. I want to be with you so much, I like being with you so much, that I forget that I’m supposed to have some core values that supersede my wants, that I’m supposed to have rules to live by that are supposed to keep me out of trouble.”

“You’re saying that … that you feel … immoral … just because you and I are sleeping together?”

“It’s … how do I explain this? It’s not the act; it’s what we don’t do.”

“Emma, now I’m the one that doesn’t understand.”

“Commitment Donovan. A common goal that is specific to … to us … to this.”

He sat there for a minute then said, “You want me to tell you I love you?”

“That’s not … not exactly what I mean.”

“You don’t want me to tell you I love you?!”

“Donovan!”

“Well, then speak so I can understand you!”

“How am I supposed to figure it out when I don’t even know what you want with me?! For two years we were adversaries as often as we were close acquaintances. In the end we were mostly friends. I still want to be your friend but I don’t want to just be your friend.”

“Emma I’m not a romantic guy if that’s what this is about.”

“What the heck has romance got to do with it?!”

That set him back on his heels. “Donovan I … I don’t know how to explain it but I feel like I’m just drifting along, enjoying something that I have no confidence is going to be here the next day. Suddenly whenever I think about that part I can’t … can’t enjoy it the same way. I keep wondering just how bad I’m going to hurt when it ends. Part of me wants to bury my head in the sand and pretend and part of me knows that is just the coward’s way out. I’m supposed to have absolutes.”

“You mean morals.”

“Morals … absolutes … whatever you want to call them. They are there to guide me and help me to make healthy choices. I feel like I’ve tossed those all overboard in favor of just being with you for as long as you’ll have me. And it is driving me crazy. Don’t you think I know how stupid this probably sounds to you?!”

“I think that we need to get something cleared up. And this is something you are going to have to accept Emma because if you can’t I don’t know how we are going to go forward from here.” He scrubbed his hand across his face. I couldn’t see it, the wind up lamp had slowly gone from dim to dark, but I could feel what he was doing and the frustration that marked every action. “I’ve been burnt twice … badly. Both times I … I thought I was in love or convinced myself that I was because I thought it was the way it was supposed to be. It completed that imaginary picture in my head. I was able to check off something on my to do list of life. And both those times were nothing but illusion. Losing Bobby, that was just about the worst but I was young and … as callous as it sounds I eventually got up and started living again, but I was different and approached things differently. My ex killed the rest of it … she made sure that there was nothing left of that idealistic man I used to be. I … I can’t say ‘I love you’ and I can’t give you romance.”

I was trying really hard to listen and hear what he meant and not just what he was saying. I wanted to interrupt and tell him that I didn’t expect romance but that would have sounded like I did expect love and … and that was a different can of worms that I didn’t want to open.

“Emma, I’m sorry. I know you’re young and you haven’t … haven’t had a chance to have any of that. But … but what I can offer is … constancy. I can promise you I won’t betray you with another woman. I’ve felt that pain and won’t inflict it on someone else. Of course that isn’t saying much right now because there aren’t any other women around. I can promise to use all my talents to keep us safe and see us prosper as much as we can. And … and I can promise that, assuming you want to, that I’m … I’m committed to this long term … forever even if that’s what you want. It won’t matter if we meet up with other people now or later, I’ll continue to be a lot more than a friend-with-benefits. If that’s what you want.”

I know I needed to say something. “Donovan? Do you even know what you are saying? Are you only saying this because … because you feel like you have to to keep the peace, maybe because you think it is what I need?”

“I’m saying it because … To be honest Emma I wasn’t thinking about this … in the beginning. I was fine keeping things casual, even wanted it that way … in the beginning. But when it started feeling like you were the one that wasn’t committed, that you were the one keeping me at arms length rather than the other way around, it made me angry. And the harder I tried the less you seemed to notice. And the angrier I got. That’s no excuse for what I did. But it was hard to swallow that I was in the same exact situation I’d found myself in before, working my butt off for a woman that didn’t want what I had to offer.”

“But … but that’s not what I meant. I told you, you remind me of my Dad. You know how to do all of this … this stuff … and …”

“Emma, how would you feel I told you that you reminded me of my mom?”

“What’s your mom got to do with it? I mean, you said she … Oh,” I said finally remember his mom wasn’t so good to him. “Well, I … I wouldn’t like it. But my parents … they were great. I … oh, maybe … maybe you didn’t know that.”

“Apparently there’s a lot of things I don’t know.”

A little defensively I said, “You never ask. I don’t know what you’d be interested in knowing and what you wouldn’t. Usually when I come up with something to say I’m afraid of boring you or saying something stupid.”

“I never meant for you to feel that way.”

“I know that. I just never wanted you to have to point out my short comings. I’m aware I’ve got a bunch of them.”

“Why did you say that?”

“Why did I say what?”

“That you have a lot of short comings?”

“Well, duh. Look at everything that has happened. Look how things went in the Committee Meetings. I’ve always stayed out of trouble better when I’m busy and working otherwise my foot seems to take up full-time residence in my mouth.”

“Why don’t we test that theory out. A little less running around trying to work yourself into a coma and a little more sitting around with me … talking.”

The very idea of that scared the bejeebers out of me but I’ve been giving it my best shot. The problem is sometimes my tongue seems to get hinged in the middle and it starts running at both ends. I’ve put him to sleep twice doing that.

That night all we did was sleep. I think we were both just too tired but the quiet at the dinner table wasn’t so intimidating. In the next few days we moved things around a bit more and built a sort of kind of fold up bed inside of a rough hewn cabinet. Donovan called it a Murphy Bed. When it is time for bed we open the cabinet and pull the bed down. It took a little getting used to after sleeping on the ground for so long but it was nice except the one time I rolled out and hit the floor, knocking the wind out of myself. Donovan laughed until the big spring he’d used sprung and he started going upside down as the bed slowly tried to close. Then it was my turn to laugh even though it hurt. We sleep with our heads on the other end now and our feet towards the wall. Donovan also pounded a ring into the floor and attached a rope from the big that we tie to the ring to make double sure we don’t get closed up unexpectedly.

We also brought a little two-seater sofa into the living quarters. We had to take it outside and beat it a long time to get the dust out of the cushions. Even then it was pretty thread bare in places. It was comfortable so I took care of that with a large sheet draped over it like a sofa cover; think shabby chic.

On the clear days we tried to spend several hours out of doors. Donovan has some weird theory that we’re not getting enough Vitamin D because we aren’t getting enough sunlight. I asked, “Then why didn’t we have that trouble at the bunker?”

“Because they put supplements in our food.”

Well you could have knocked me over with a feather. I never even thought to be suspicious of the food we were eating. Donovan then told me, “Loosen your tinfoil helmet a little bit and let the circulation back in. The supplements were just that, supplements to replace not getting the fresh food we needed.”

But we aren’t taking supplements now so we need to be careful to prevent and alleviate medical problems the natural way. I think he is still looking for some reason for why he slapped me.

One result of “the slap” is that I’ve noticed Donovan isn’t near as rough when we wrestle or play. We were tossing a softball around outside and I wasn’t paying attention and caught a bad bounce off of a rock and bent my thumb nail back even through the mittens. He almost refused to play with me anymore. He also avoids touching my face. But neither of those things even comes remotely close to the overreaction he had when we were pulling this one tree closer to the cave entrance for cutting.

I was a little too close trying to get a better grip on some branches for dragging and his hand slips on the branch he is pulling and he clips me in the ear with his elbow. If such things had been the way they used to be I could have expected to see an ambulance and a fire and rescue truck at the very least. I decided to implement a little shock therapy. I pulled him down into the snow where he had plopped me and kissed him.

“What did you do that for?” he asked, shocked.

“Because it was the only thing I could think of to stop you from treating me like I’m made of glass. It was an accident Donovan. No harm, no foul. You didn’t mean to. I’m not hurt.”

“You could have been. And …” he stopped and sighed. “I … I just can’t stop thinking about …”

“I forgive you.”

“You … you what?”

“I forgive you. In fact, I forgave you right after it happened. Stop beating yourself up. You’ve said it won’t happen again and I believe you. Let’s just get passed it. OK?”

He looked at me like I was some creature from a different dimension and I thought maybe I had made a mistake until he said, “You’re just willing to let it go and forget it. Just like that?”

“Yeah.”

“You have got to be the strangest girl. You sound like Uncle Shem.”

“OK … is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

He snorted, “Depends on your point of view. But … mostly good I guess. Let’s get out of this snow and get back to the cave. If I’m not mistaken that’s another storm coming over the ridge.”

The way I look at it is that if I expect to be forgiven for things I have to offer forgiveness to other people. It’s not a *** for tat or karma thing. It’s … well, that’s what we are supposed to do. It isn’t always easy to do but that is the way it is supposed to work.

As a surprise I’d been inventorying all of the food we had and trying to make a menu so everything gets used up the best way possible. We’ve still got over a year of food if we are careful but it won’t always be interesting food. But last night I wanted something fun. I think we both really needed it. I’m not really much of a chocoholic but I do like the taste and texture of fudges, not necessarily only chocolate fudges which was good thing as I couldn’t figure out how to make fudge with the type of chocolate we have in the supplies. However I was able to make butterscotch fudge and it wasn’t hard at all.

I saved a quarter cup of milk from my breakfast, mixed in a six-serving size of butterscotch Jell-O pudding mix, added a little bit of powdered butter and then cooked it just until it boiled a little around the edges. Then I took it off of the fire and mixed in two and a quarter cups of powdered sugar. I think someone must have gotten a ton of that stuff in an after holiday sale or something. There was easily thirty pounds of the stuff in boxes and bags. After the powdered sugar was all blended in I poured it into a small aluminum pan I lined with wax paper then hid it in the dish cupboard and just in time because Donovan came in from chopping wood in the front cavern.

I wish I had a picture of his face when I brought it out after a dinner of rice and beans. The look was even funnier, though maybe not quite complimentary, when he found out I made it from scratch.

After cleaning everything up I was just about ready for bed. Some days I feel like a bear that wants to hibernate, especially when we snuggle in front of the fire. I had my eyes closed and wasn’t all that awake when I felt Donovan playing with my left hand and then something cold sliding onto my finger.

I opened my eyes and it was a ring, but not one like I’d ever seen in a store. The main body was a wide beaten ring of silver. The stone was an oddly shaped piece of opaque quartz that was attached to the silver ring because it was wrapped with fine silver wire.

“I’ll … uh … find a real ring one of these days. I … I just … I thought you would like something to remember that I promised that I wouldn’t leave you. If you don’t like it or …”

“Donovan, no one has ever given me a ring before. Not … not even my parents. They were going to … to … for my graduation. They were going to buy my class ring. They never got the chance. This … this is so pretty. You made this didn’t you?”

“I know it isn’t much but …”

“Donovan, thank you. No matter what, this means … so much … to me.”

I don’t know exactly what is going to happen. Will the sun come out in our life time? How do we find food when what we have runs out? Will we ever see other people? But now, now I know that I won’t have to find the answers to those questions by myself. I won’t have to live the answer to those questions by myself.

I don’t know if you call this being married. I do know that whatever it is isn’t the modern concept of marriage. I don’t know if Donovan even wants to think of it like that, or if there will ever be “love” between us. But whatever it is there is forever and there is more-than-friendship. That’s going to have to be good enough.

Chapter Fifteen

2010-03-07T19:07:00.001-08:00

Chapter 15

I have taken a look in the mirror … and gone eeewwwww. I don’t mean a literal mirror because that would definitely depress me, especially after what has happened. No, I mean that mirror that makes you take a good long look at yourself. Unfortunately I’m not near as satisfied with myself as I used to be … because I just realized I am the exact same person that I used to be.

OK, that makes very little sense. What I mean is that I think when Moshe … no, be honest with yourself Emma, it started before that. When my parents died I think that I slapped about ten coats of lacquer on who I was and called it good. That was OK because I was a kid and I wasn’t a bad kid back then. The problem is I’m still the same person I was, only I’m not a kid anymore and it’s no longer OK or good that I’m the same person.

Oh Lord, that still doesn’t make any sense. I just … it feels … this is ridiculous. It’s like I buried a part of myself when I buried my parents. And then a good friendship died of betrayal and I buried it too and along the way buried another piece of me with it. And then the world died and I … sometimes it doesn’t feel like there is very much of me left and the part that is left is all iced up and afraid of something else dying and that there won’t be anything of me left. Ugh, that sounds so dramatic. I despise the idea of being a drama queen but it looks like maybe I’ve been a closet drama queen; I felt so smug and self-righteous that despite it all I was standing on my own two feet and didn’t need anyone’s help. Oh how wrong I’ve been and too scared to admit it.

I’m not quite sure what to make of recent developments. I’m not used to feeling this kind of stuff. Maybe it is more honest to say that I’m not used to letting myself feel this kind of stuff.

The snow did bury us just like I was afraid of. It took two hours for us to break through the plug that had built up around the entrance only to find that it was still snowing hard. Even with gloves and mittens on Donovan’s hands were badly frost nipped. I looked it up in an old encyclopedia set that I found in the big cavern and I’m pretty sure they weren’t frost bitten because within the hour they were back to normal with no apparent tissue damage but it was a close thing. They stayed sore but even that went away during the night. We decided since we had plenty of wood – and other stuff to burn if the firewood ran out – that we’ d allow the snow tunnel that we dug to close back over.

Donovan did take some thin tree trunks he’d drug into our shelter for cutting later and lashed them together – looked like a river raft when it was laying on the ground – and then put that against the cave opening to keep the cold wind out and the cave’s warmer air in. The cave rose to a balmy 48 to 52 degrees F when we kept the outside cold from creeping in. The deeper into the big cavern you go the more stable the temperature is, averaging 50 degrees F. Compared to what some of the weather has been that feels tropical. There are a couple of little alcoves off the big cavern that are still freezing cold but that is a good thing because that is what I’m using them as – a freezer of sorts. I’ll explain why in a bit.

The first day we were essentially trapped I was OK. I worked and tried to act like everything was normal. Donovan sat in front of the fire whittling wooden pegs for the bedsteads he was planning. That’s one thing about Donovan that I have always admired. He’s like a cat; he can pace like a caged lion one minute and then turn about and be like the panther that has found a good spot in the tree and can stay up there quiet and full of patience for as long as it takes. Me, if I don’t have something to do I’m going to go nuts. I just can’t seem to make myself sit still. When I’m forced to sit still I have to be doing something like studying or something that occupies my hands like sewing; my mind has to be engaged.

That first day I managed to work myself good and tired doing nothing more constructive that moving piles around in the big cavern. I’d do a little work and then run back to the fireplace to check on the bread I was baking. Donovan asked if I wanted him to keep an eye on it and I said, “No! You just relax and do what you need to. This is my chore so I’m going to do it.” He shrugged his shoulders. I kept to myself that I didn’t want a repeat of the soup incident.

I finally managed to separate and organize the food from the other flotsam in the cavern and that included what we had brought in from the half-track. Most of the food that was in there must have come from the kid bringing stuff from his house. When I showed some of it to Donovan to ask what would still be good and what would be bad he said it looked like everything but a couple of the cans were still OK. Even the lard was still good because it had basically been frozen all this time. That has been a lucky deal because we don’t have any oil or anything like that to cook with.

There was one cracked canning jar that made an absolutely disgusting mess in a box of odds and ends; and a couple of other jars that Donovan told me to not touch because their seal was broken and looked like a major science project. He took those outside carefully and dumped them down in a small gully we are using as a dump (but we don’t plan on throwing much away). Looking at all the food – looks like a lot but probably isn’t as much as I think – I decided to try my hand at baking a loaf of bread; I was tired of crackers. The recipe was in a little recipe book I found.

I made oatmeal for breakfast and made enough extra to make the Baked Oatmeal Bread. You take three cups of thick cooked oatmeal and add to it two tablespoons of fat (that’s where the lard came in), one and a half teaspoons of salt, two tablespoons of molasses and stir it up good. Then you mix a packet of yeast with three-quarters cup of warm water and let it sit for a couple of minutes. Then you mix that in with the oatmeal gunk. Then you need to start adding flour to the oatmeal gunk until you get a dough that won’t stick to the mixing bowl but isn’t too dry either. It took nearly five cups of flour. I covered the bowl and stuck in near the fire so it would stay warm and rise, then I followed the directions of kneading it again and then forming it into loaves, putting it into greased loaf pans and letting it rise again and then baking it for about 45 to 50 minutes or until browned. I had to use this old reflector thing I found. My dad had helped Laura and I build something similar during Girl Scouts and it brought back memories that I usually tried to stuff down.

While I was working on the bread I caught Donovan watching me. I was running back and forth between what I was doing in the big cavern and every once in a while I’d catch the tail end of a grin. I put it down to chauvinism at first but then I got it into my head that he was laughing at me for some reason. He was, I just didn’t understand why at the time. It made me more anxious than I already was. I was absolutely going to prove … something; I still don’t know what but I was determined.

The bread was a lot better than a first attempt had any business being. I know why now but I didn’t then. I’m glad I didn’t crow the way I felt like doing or I would have felt like an even bigger fool.

The garbanzo soup I made to go with the bread was all me though. I made it from a dry mix but I know how to make it from scratch because Momma taught me (that was another thing I did with Laura). I wish I could have made it with more chorizo but all there was in the food supplies was some stick pepperoni and while you can use that it’s not quite the same. I made more broth by tossing in a couple of ham bouillon cubes and some more water. It wasn’t like Momma made it but it wasn’t bad either.

After lunch I cleaned the dishes and then went back to working in the big cavern. I had a lot of nervous energy and needed to work it off. I made pretty good headway and then when it was close to dinner time I went back to the living area to find Donovan toasting some of the bread to make something he called “rarebit.” For dinner we finished the soup and the bread with rarebit on it.

“You need to eat more fat and this cheese should help,” he said pointing to a can of cheese we had in our supplies.

“How do you know how to … um … make this stuff? The rarebit?”

“We made it out in the field with canned cheese that the company would send out to us.”

“Oh.”

“Eat up.”

After the first few bites I was able to eat it without worrying that my stomach was going to do something it shouldn’t. It was actually very good. Again, I got the feeling that Donovan was laughing at me and I just couldn’t figure it out.

I cleaned up after dinner and went back to the cavern and back to work. A little while later Donovan came into the cavern where I was and said, “You got some big project going?”

“Trying to get this stuff organized.”

“Why?”

“Uh … why?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Because … it is a mess in here and there might be useful stuff to find. If I hadn’t started to clean I wouldn’t have found that other ax handle when you needed and …”

“OK. But it’s getting late. Don’t you think you should sit some too?”

“Why?”

He looked at me with what I’ve come to realize is his thoughtful look. “You don’t sit still very much do you?”

“I … I can’t.”

“Are you ADD or something?”

“Huh? No. No … it’s just too hard.”

“It’s too hard to sit?” he laughed.

“Donovan, please don’t laugh.” I hated sounded like a little girl afraid of getting her feelings hurt but that’s pretty much how I felt.

He realized suddenly that I was serious. “Something bothering you?”

All I could do was roll my eyes and say, “Something must have been bothering me for a long time then. I just … just can’t be still. When I’m forced to I don’t feel very good. My head gets in a whirl. My mouth runs away and says things it shouldn’t. Just … it’s not good when I don’t stay busy. OK … you might as well laugh. I know it sounds ridiculous,” I added defensively turning away, waiting for the verbal blow that always came when I tried to explain it to people.

“I’m not laughing Emma. My Aunt Rachel was the same way. Uncle Shem said when she got a scrub brush in her hand it was time to go out to the barn and get out of her way. You want me to get out of your way?”

“Why should you be the one that has to get out of the way? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I was beginning to wonder.”

I never got a chance to ask him what he meant by that because there was a woosh that went straight through us both.

“Grab the coats! Let’s get them on!” I could barely understand what he was shouting over the roaring of the wind. “The wind knocked down the barricade!”

I hadn’t felt wind like that since that storm we were in when we found those cars and somehow this felt even worse; it snatched the breath right out of your lungs and shoved ice crystals under your skin. We were both shaking so bad by the time we got our coats on it was hard to think. Without warning Donovan backed me into a corner and was using his own body to protect me from the wind. He was shouting but had a hard time making himself understood. “We … need … to … get … that … barricade … back up! You … with … me?!”

I nodded and we fought our way into the outer cavern and everything was already covered with ice crystals. My nose hairs felt like they were trying to crawl up into my brain to escape the cold. Moving that barricade was like trying to row uphill or push a kite against the wind. It took almost an hour to get it up, prop it with some additional tree trunks, and then pile the remaining woodpile against it to hold it in place.

Just getting the barricade up was exhausting and then doing the rest of it bled both Donovan and I dry of energy, but eventually it was accomplished. I felt like a limp noodle but at the same time I was flying because it felt like we had won a major battle. I turned to give Donovan a high five just in time to see him stumble and grab the leg that he had only recently stopped limping with. I got under his arm and let him use me like a crutch and got him back into the living quarters and then over to the pallet he had been sitting on while he whittled. It was near the fire and I threw another log in trying to drive out the painful cold that had come in.

I looked around the room and it was a mess. Snow had blown in and stuff had been knocked all over the place. A grunt from Donovan brought my attention back to him. “Are you all right?” I asked.

I got a look that embarrassed me. I hate sounding stupid. “OK, so that was a less than smart question. Is there anything I can do to make it better?”

Donovan looked at me a second and then barked out a laugh and shook his head. “Emma, you take the cake. If you tried to leave yourself any more open you couldn’t. Just tell me I haven’t used all of the ibuprofen in the first aid kit.”

I rummaged through the pack trying to figure out what he was talking about. After I checked I said, “No, there’s nearly half a bottle left. Even if you had, there are a couple of more bottles of other stuff in here that Laine told me I could give you if it got bad.”

“Well, it’s not bad, just nagging at me. I don’t want anything that is going to affect me that strongly in case that barricade goes again.”

“How about … um … how about cold and hot compresses? Is anything swollen? Here let me …”

“Girl you would try the patience of a saint! Keep your hands to yourself and just get us something warm to drink and then we need to get some sleep. Tomorrow you’re going to need to help me go through some of that stuff in the big cavern and see if we can fabricate a barricade or gate of some type that is more durable. And we need one on this room as a second barrier.” So we did; go to sleep I mean. Him on his pallet and me on mine. We were both so tired I don’t think it took either one of us long. Unfortunately I acted like a nutcase in the middle of the night.

I’ve always had vivid dreams that I remember but I learned as a very little kid that dreams were all they were. Once I realized that the pictures my head made at night weren’t real even the scariest ones didn’t bother me too much once I woke up. But every once in a while I’ll have a doozey and my brain decided to pick that night as the date for a good old fashioned nightmare based a little too much in reality, both present and past, for me to be able to just throw it off as easily as normal.

Pieces of lots of old nightmares made an appearance in the new one but it wasn’t until the big cavern got mixed up in my recent past that things got out of hand. Donovan said I woke him up mumbling in my sleep and tossing and turning but it wasn’t until I stood up and started heading towards the cave entrance that he really woke up all the way.

I remember fighting with him and saying, “No! You can’t make me go back in there. I won’t live like that again.” Then I woke up and didn’t know what was going on for a few seconds then I remembered what I had been dreaming and I could have just crawled into the nearby hole.

“You awake now?”

“Oh God Donovan, I’m .. I’m sorry.”

“You’ve mumbled in your sleep before but this is the first time I’ve ever seen you sleep walk. Do you make a habit of this?”

“No. If I’m under a lot of stress about something it kind of bleeds into my dream cycle. I’m really sorry. I …”

“Hey, long as you don’t snore no harm no foul so stop apologizing. But look at you, you’re cold again. Come on, come over here closer to the fire.”

“Donovan, I’ve disturbed your sleep enough. I don’t want to be more of a problem.”

“You’re talking to the wrong guy Emma. I’m selfish enough that if it was a problem I would have just told you to sleep it off so I could get back to sleep. It isn’t a problem but now I’m cold too so come on, let’s warm up together.”

We rearranged everything and even pulled an extra cover over the top of both of us. I thought Donovan had gone back to sleep and was laying there trying to let the fire hypnotize me so I could do the same when he asked, “You ready to talk about it?”

“You can’t want to hear …”

“I wouldn’t have asked otherwise Emma. Satisfy my curiosity if nothing else.”

I gathered up my courage and the confessed, “It’s that stupid big cavern. For some reason it reminds me of Level 5. Sometimes I just have to get out of there.”

He didn’t say anything for a while and I wasn’t sure what to think of the silence. Then I felt him drape an arm over me. “It’s OK Emma. We left the bunker behind a long ways back. And even if someone tried that again they’d have to come through me first.”

God forgive me but I snuggled into his arm; I wanted the comfort and closeness he was offering and hang the consequences of whether he decided I was an “easy” girl despite what I had said before. And I slept better than I had in days.

The thing is there were no consequences. The next morning he was up and massaging his leg and heating water when I woke up. I was almost embarrassed but part of me didn’t care either. I got up and fixed an omelet using powdered eggs … they are like death on toast if you try and scramble them and eat them plain but the omelets I make are pretty good. Nothing was said about the previous night by either one of us. After breakfast we started working on the new doors.

That was not so easy. First off it still sounded like there was a freight train outside. We could see through the gaps in the barricade that the wind had scoured the snow away and it was simply flying around rather than being packed down against the entrance as it did when there wasn’t any wind. And it was so cold that we couldn’t stay in the outer cavern very long, even fully dressed as we were. Temporarily we’ve decided to leave the outside door alone, at least until the wind dies down some or we need more wood. For the entrance to the living quarters area Donovan framed in the opening and squared it off then we cut down and planed one of the old solid wood doors that were in the cavern.

I found out that Donovan is persnickety when it comes to his carpentry. Rather than just cut everything off from two of the sides he cut bits from all four sides so that the door still looked symmetrical when it was hung. He definitely has more patience than I do. I had to paw through a chest of old door hardware to find three matching hinges that would work and then watch as he figured out a way to latch and secure the door so it would stay closed.

We stuffed all of the gaps between the wood and the door frame with the remains of some dry rotted drapes for insulation and then he used more wood and somehow or other sawed and then sanded it so that it fit over those gaps. It was actually very nice looking when he got finished. I mean like real nice. Even better, the living quarters was warming up since we weren’t heating the colder outside room. Donovan said he would start on a door over the entrance to the big cavern after lunch and that would help even more.

That never happened. I went into the big cavern to grab a quart of canned soup and … I really don’t know what happened. I had to have tripped on something but I just can’t remember. Donovan said he’d given me plenty of time to come back but when I didn’t he called my name. When I didn’t answer him he came looking for me. He actually stepped on me and I have a pretty awful bruise on the back of my leg.

I had a really bad headache when I came to but Donovan said I had been in and out of it for over an hour, mostly just talking out of my head. “You scared me girl. Don’t … don’t do it again. Understand me?”

Donovan said that I’d hit my head a glancing blow on an old coffee table as I was falling. I had meant to bring the table into the fireplace room but hadn’t gotten around to it. I thought we could use it to put our dishes on something more solid than our laps and had leaned it against the wall to get it out of the way. I can’t even remember tripping.

The first sensation I remember feeling was hair sticking to my ear. My hair was disgusting because on top of all the other nastiness in it, now it was all stuck together with dried blood. There was blood in my ear and down my neck and I could feel my clothes sticking to my shoulder.

After answering his questions about how many fingers was he holding up and what my name was and a few others that I thought strange I groaned, “Oh no.”

“What? Are you hurting? I’ll …”

“No. Sorry. I just meant … look at this mess I’ve made. I already felt gross, now I feel completely disgusting. I don’t know how you can even be around me.”

Donovan laughed and said, “You’re such a girl.”

I don’t know, something snapped, and I started crying.

My reaction surprised him. He talked to me like I was a little girl and that only made me feel worse and cry harder. “Hey! Hey. There’s nothing to cry about. Come on … stop it. Here, let me see.”

“I don’t want you to see me like this. I’m nasty. I … I smell and my hair is oily … oh just everything.”

“Well, in case you havn’t noticed, I’m not exactly fresh as a daisy either. Hold still, now that I know I’m not going to hurt you I’ll get the rest of this off.”

He moved my big pony tail out of the way and washed off the gunk on my neck. There wasn’t much that could be done about the rest of it but at least I felt a little better.

“Donovan I’m … I’m sorry. I don’t know what is wrong with me. I never cry. This is so stupid! Oh …” I groaned that last bit because my head started to pound really bad when I tried to sit up and act like something besides a whiny brat.

“Dizzy? Does it hurt? You gonna puke?”

“All of the above so move.” I crawled over to the waste bucket just in time but all that came up was spit. I felt like I was going to pass out and little black dots grew big in my sight.

“Here we go. Let me …”

“Donovan, what is wrong? I … I …”

“You have a concussion.”

“What? Wait. Stop that. What does a concussion have to do with my clothes?”

“Relax. You don’t have anything I haven’t seen before and you need to get out of these bloody clothes. I also want to see if you’re banged up any place else.”

“Donovan …” I said warningly.

“Emma. Look at me. You aren’t two years old and neither am I. I’m not playing doctor here. I’m trying to help. I’m not going to … do … whatever it is you’re afraid of.”

“I’m not afraid of you, you Neanderthal! I’m afraid of me!”

Donovan’s face went from blank, to surprised, to total male satisfaction and then outright laughter … and I realized I had said that last bit out loud without meaning to.

“Ooohhhhh nnooooo. Just bury me now and put me out of my misery.”

He just laughed harder which did nothing but make me grab my head because of the pounding. “Oh Emma, girl you are something else. I think we need to sit and have a talk. But first we need to get you into some clean clothes so you don’t look so pathetic.”

“Just forget it. Forget I said anything at all. I can take care of this myself. I’m sorry I’m an embarrassment and …” I scrambled off to throw up again. “Just … (heave) … leave … (heave) … me alone (heave) …”

I thought he was finally going to let me die in peace but right when I nearly nodded off in the bucket there he was again. He sighed, “Emma, just … oh the @#$% with it.”

That’s when I found out that I had absolutely no clue at all what guys are really capable of when they decide to ignore anything you have to say. I was way out of my league. I so thought I knew more than I did. I was a female chauvinist … and I was getting paid back big time. I was out of my dirty clothes and into semi-clean ones before I knew it; almost before I was able to get embarrassed.

“Now, you are going to stay put. I catch you getting up, moving, wiggling … anything … and you are going to find out just how much of a cave man I can be. Hey … hey, hey, hey … I said stay put, not go to sleep. I want you bright eyed and bushy tailed. Tell me about what your plans were for the cavern.”

“You want me to … Donovan, I don’t know that I had plans for the cavern. I was just sort of cleaning things up.”

“So, this place doesn’t mean anything to you?” he asked while he started heating water.

“Donovan …”

“Yeah?”

“Why do I have the feeling that I’ve been the butt-end of a joke you’ve been playing?”

“Huh? Why would you say that?”

“You … you’re … that’s food … and you’re cooking it.”

“Yeah, about that. I was just ribbing you. I … uh … was just getting a little of my own back. I expected you to make a big deal out of it and then I was going to … I don’t know. But then you tried to be nice about it and once I’d started it I wasn’t quite sure how to stop. Frankly you’re a good cook. My ex … you don’t want to know. We spent more on fast food than we did on our car payments.”

“So … so it was just a joke. You … you didn’t really need me. To … to cook I mean.”

“Back up there. You meant what you said, not …”

“Donovan I’m tired and just …”

“Whoa … no sleeping. Period. Let me see your eyes … come on … how many fin … are you crying again?”

“Just leave me alone. I don’t know why I’m crying. Stupid, stupid, stu …”

A piercing whistle sent a shaft of pain through my head. “I said no sleeping sweetheart. The broth is almost warm. Keep wiping your face with this wet rag.”

I shifted my focus and tried to remember that I couldn’t sleep no matter how much easier it felt to just doze off. I was slowly losing the battle when Donovan sat down beside me holding a mug. I tried really hard to drink it but I was only able to get half of it down before my stomach started rebelling.

“You’ll finish it later.” It felt like a threat. “Now, back to what we were talking about.” That was most definitely a threat.

“Donovan please. I’m sorry I caused you problems. I’ll try really hard not to let it happen again. Just don’t hold this against me. I don’t know what the problem is. I’m always more in control than this.”

“Yeah. I get that. I don’t like to lose control of things either. But that isn’t what I want to talk about. You said ‘then you don’t really need me’ like you meant more than just the cooking.”

“I don’t know what I meant.”

“Ha. You aren’t getting out of this as easy as that. I’m done running this around in circles. First I get the feeling that maybe you like me especially well but then you brush it off as friendship. Then I think maybe it’s worth another try and you act like you haven’t got a clue so I decide the friendship thing is all there is to it. Now you say it isn’t me your afraid of but yourself. I need some straight talk girl, not all that female secret code stuff. Am I just your friend or are you saying that you want more than friendship with me?”

I was prepared to die right then and right there. But there was a part of me that was saying, “What did you expect? He’s a grown man, you’re a grown woman even if he doesn’t always talk to you like you are. This was bound to come up at some point.”

“Donovan …”

“I’m waiting for an answer Emma.”

“Well … I don’t know how to answer you. Sue me, I’ve never done this before.”

“You’ve never done … are you kidding me? I know options were limited in the bunker and things were a little … unusual. But before that surely … I mean … What about that Moshe dued?”

“You know good and well that I didn’t do what some of the other women did in the bunker and that things were a whole lot more than ‘unusual.’ As for Moshe, I told you, he was just a friend.”

“A friend … or … a friend with benefits.”

“A friend with … if I wasn’t afraid of puking I would so hit you right now. What kind of girl do you think I am? Oh wait, that’s right, I was a 5 and where there is smoke there has to be fire.” Suddenly I ran out of steam and said, “Although the way I was acting like a floozy and climbing up in your lap every time you turned around … what else were you supposed to think of me?”

I was almost too tired to cry but that didn’t keep me from feeling like it. It made my head hurt and my stomach role. I put my head between my bent knees and tried to breathe through my mouth slowly to keep ahold of what dignity I had left.

“Emma, I’m gonna ask you something and I want an absolutely truthful answer. Are you telling me you … that you … I don’t even know how to ask this without sounding like an idiot. Emma exactly how much experience do you have?”

I groaned out loud. I wasn’t really embarrassed of my particular condition but still, it isn’t something that I’m used to discussing with anyone of the male persuasion either. Not even Moshe ever asked me that kind of question.

“Emma I’m waiting for an answer.”

“I know you are. Look, I’m … I don’t … I’ve gone out a few times but no one ever … I’ve never …”

“Am I to take from all of that hemming and hawing that you don’t have any experience or just a little or what?”

“I’m trying to tell you. Have a little patience already.”

Donovan just laughed again. “Emma I’ve been a heck of a lot more patient than I even knew I could be. Look at me. I won’t force anything on you but I won’t live in limbo land either. It is either one way or another. I had to deal with enough games during my marriage. I won't do that again.”

“I’m not playing a game!” I shouted and then had to grab my head.

“See what you get?”

“You aren’t making this easy Donovan. I’m sitting here talking about sex with a guy whose first name I don’t even know. I’m not used to talking about this stuff with anyone. Not even Laura.”

“Laura is that dude Moshe’s sister, the one that was your best friend.”

“Yes. And why do you keep saying ‘that dude Moshe’ like that?”

“Because I don’t like him and that is the most polite thing I’m ever going to call him. Aldwyn.”

I thought I hadn’t heard him right. “What?”

“Aldwyn. It’s a family name from way back on my dad’s side of the family. He wished it on me thinking his family would take some notice of me. He was wrong. I ran into another boy with the same name when I was in middle school and that was the first time I’d even met anywone from that side of my family. His parents, my paternal aunit and uncle, came to the school and made a big stink about me being in the same classes as him.”

“Aldwyn … Aldwyn Donovan …”

“Don’t strain yourself. I haven’t gone by Aldwyn since I left school. I’ve gone by A.E. Donovan so long that no one has called me anything but Donovan for years now. Even my ex called me Donovan.”

“A.E.? What does the E stand for?”

He sighed and said, “Ebenezer.”

I thought for a second and then shook my head. It sounded impossible. “They didn’t really do that to a kid, especially not their own. You’re … you’re yanking my chain again.”

“Aldwyn Ebenezer Donovan. Named after both of my grandfathers and neither one of them would even acknowledge my existence. How’s that for irony?”

“Uh … do you want me to … I mean …”

“You call me anything but Donovan and not only will I not answer you I’ll make it hard for you to use your sitter for a week,” he said giving me the eye. “You want me to start running around calling you Emmaline Josephine?”

“Well … you can if you want to; you call me Emma already. You’ll probably get tired of the mouth full though. I was named after my grandmothers, but that doesn’t bother me at all. Just don’t call me Josie, then we might have to fight.”

I was getting comfortable again but I relaxed too soon.

“So now that you know my first name and my middle name, something very few people knew even before the world turned to ice, that should remove your objection to continuing our previous discussion.”

“You aren’t going to drop this are you?”

“What do you think?”

I rolled my eyes and tried really hard not to get defensive. “I don’t have any of the ‘experience’ I think you are talking about. I got asked out a few of times in highschool and once or twice in college but mostly because Laura arranged it when she wanted to double date or when that was the only way to keep her parents off her back.”

“So that means that …”

“Just assume that whatever you’re thinking that I haven’t. It'll probably be true 99.9% of the time. In fact, just assume I’m a complete idiot and don’t have a clue what I’m doing which is true 100% of the time apparently since I’m making such a hash of this.”

“Whao. No need to go that far.” He gave me a thoughtful look, “Though I’ll admit that it isn’t exactly what I expected of a modern co-ed nor is it what I’m used to. But … this Neanderthal finds it a little fascinating and …” He started laughing. “I swear, all this blushing is something I never expected out of the Ice Maiden.”

“The who?”

Now it was Donovan’s turn to look embarrassed. “Don’t worry about it. What I meant …”

“You mean … you mean me. I’m the Ice Maiden.” I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know but I asked anyway. “Did you make up the name or … never mind, I can see it on your face. That’s what all of you called me isn’t it?”

“Emma …”

“Forget it. It is what it is. Look, I’m really tired. Can I lay down and sleep yet?”

“No. Not until this is finished.”

“It’s finished. I told you what you wanted to know.”

Now it was Donovan's turned to get defensive. “You have to admit you do freeze people out.”

“Whatever.”

“Don’t play that game. You knew exactly what you were doing.”

“If you say so. But tell me why I should have even suspected that anyone cared one way or the other. I saw what, maybe a handful of people outside of the Level 5 personnel? I wasn’t even allowed out of that area unless it was for a committee meeting or a command performance at one of those stupid socials. I was angry Donovan. It still makes me angry thinking about it. Maybe people got a little of the spillover from that but I didn’t exactly see them standing in line to help me out either.”

I shrugged out from under his shoulder and tried to stand up but the room kept tipping. “Sit down Emma.”

“Stop telling me what to do.”

“I’m …”

Finding the energy to get angry hadn't been easy but I managed it. “Why do you even care anyway? Admit it, you have absolutely no respect for me do you? You never have. You’re the same as the rest of them. I …” Every time I tried to take a step or two the room would tilt and I’d have to close my eyes and stop moving or risk falling, barfing, or both.

I jumped when I felt him gently turn me around and say, “This isn’t going quite how I planned it. Stop moving or you’re going to fall. Where do you think you’re going to go? Back to work?”

“I don’t know. Anything beats sitting here feeling sorry for myself and worrying this lame conversation to death. Nothing changes. Ever. I should have figured that out by now.”

“That’s enough,” he said less than gently. “Come here and sit down. I’m not going to ask again. Now.”

“Stop telling me …”

“No. Get used to it. Drove my ex crazy too but I’m not about to change, not right now. Look at you. You’re weak as a kitten. You’ve lost more weight than I thought and you’ve got a nasty bruise that is spreading from your ear to your cheek. You look like some guy slugged you. I’m sorry I pushed you as hard as I have but I’m tired of living in limbo. I need an answer.”

“An answer to what?!” I had to grab my head again because it felt like I’d just shoved an ice pick into my skull.

“I’m not asking you to play Eve to my Adam … but I think it’s possible that we can build something out of this situation. Is that so hard to understand?”

“No, it’s not hard to understand. What’s hard to understand is why you would want it with me? I know I’m the only game in town but I still just don’t get it.”

“Come here and let me show you.” Well, his type of convincing was pretty powerful. It made my head ache but not enough for me to make him stop. He’s not pushing me but I know his patience is finite. I know one of these days I’m going to have to … well, it’s wrong just to string him along; I have to decide what I want. And … and we’ve left the pallets together.

What a mess. Part of me is jumping up and down in excitement that I’m finally the one that got the guy. And another part of me cringes every time I realize I got the guy because I’m the only girl around to get him. And because I just have to act like I have multiple personalities part of me is wondering if I’m still a “good girl” or not. What happens to us when the snow stops falling and he wants to go off and find other people? I don’t even know if there is an “us.”

The next day I still had a head ache but the cave didn’t move when I was up and walking around. I heated enough water to wash out all of our underclothes and to kind of wash my hair out. I tried to wash the rest of me a bit but it was so cold even with the fire going that I got badly chilled and had to lay down under the covers. Donovan came back from squirreling around in the junk in the big cavern and found me there shivering. He made me stay there and he made something he called Hoppin’ John and Rice, after which he made me eat one of those Millennium Bars. Not a good combination. It had the same effect on him and we made an early night of it. I think he fell asleep faster than he had intended. I had to get up and write some of this stuff out of my system.

One last thought before I crawl back into the bed that I’ve made for myself … figuratively as well as literally. I’m a little jealous of Noah’s daughter in laws. At least they married before the flood and knew that their husband’s picked them out of a crowd. I don’t know if Donovan picked me because there wasn’t anyone else to pick from or not, I don’t know if I’ll ever know for certain. I don’t even know if this is the real and lasting type of relationship. I’m not sure I want to know badly enough to deal with getting an answer I don’t want.

Chapter Fourteen

2010-03-07T19:06:00.000-08:00

Chapter Fourteen

For me personally this has been a busy and confusing time; I don't know how Donovan feels about it. I miss my handy dandy fork lift. I also miss electric lights, central heat, and non-stick skillets but since I’m unlikely to see any of that stuff for a long time if ever I suppose I should just get over it. Easier said than done; this little camping trip isn’t near as much fun as all of those apocalyptic novels made it seem like it would be. In some ways I even miss being what Donovan likes to call when he gets preachy a “sheeple.” That is a not very nice term for a person who just acquiesces to authority without putting a lot of thought into the why of things. I was never a total sheeple, too much independence for that, but it was nice when I didn’t have to think about every stinking little detail in order to survive.

Another thing that is hard to understand is how I got volunteered to be “the little woman.” On second thought yeah I do. I can’t chop wood and Donovan can’t cook. At all. As in the process of boiling water escapes him. He thinks those self heat meals are haute cuisine. The other day for lunch he tried to “help” by heating soup so I could finish hanging the last of that disgusting bedding outside until we can figure out how to clean them (or simply dispose of them). I was having fits trying to hang the nasty things over tree limbs and keep them there. That’s not as easy as it sounds given the cold wind that has started blowing around during the day time hours.

So, I’m outside dealing with stuff and getting very irritated as I chase down about half of what I hang up because it is blowing away. I guess he was trying to be nice, or maybe he was born without taste buds, I don’t know which. As I got the last blanket finally hung so that it would stay I turned and noticed some smoke coming out of the cave entrance. I was already out of breath from cold and work but the adrenaline kicked in and I ran over only to bounce off of his chest at the cave entrance. He was bringing me a mug of “soup.”

All he had to do was add water to the dry mix and simmer and stir occasionally for fifteen minutes until it thickened. That’s it. Rocket science it was not. Instead he thought it would be quicker if he boiled it for ten minutes but he said that for some reason it stuck to the bottom of the pot and tasted a little bland. Bland?! The pot is still so black on the bottom I’m unable to use it for anything but waste disposal. Then he decided to doctor it up to “fix” it. Oh … my … goodness. The first bite nearly turned my lungs inside out and my eyes watered so bad it looked like I was crying. He thought I was being mushy about him making me soup … and he blushed. I mean he really blushed. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I was just about to upchuck on his boots if I didn’t get out of the cave and get some fresh frozen oxygen to purge my sinuses.

What amazed me even more is that I sat there and watched him eat his share and mine too without a single twitch after I told him I couldn’t eat because my nerves were a little fried. The man amazes me with his can-do and make-do ingenuity but I’ll be drawn and quartered before I let him anywhere near what I plan on eating again. As far as his stomach goes he has got to be a mutant, that’s all there is to it.

I’m a little anxious about our progress. Originally I planned on it only taking one day of cleaning and then we’d move in but it took three and the only reason we are all the way in today is because another bad snow storm has us boxed in and we were both concerned that all of our gear would be in the half-track and we wouldn’t be able to get to it if we needed it. We’ve been out of the bunker for a over a month now and I thought I was used to the snow but it is coming down so much that I’m a little worried that we are going to get blocked into the cave completely for who knows how long.

I’m glad we managed to at least clean the worst of the mess up before we had to hole up. The depth of filth that was in the various cave areas cannot possibly have come from the couple of months that the kids lived here. Donovan, or the resident cave specialist as I call him when I want to be irritating, thinks the cave has been in use a very long time. He found some cave paintings down in the spring cavern and he found some old reflective mirrors, the kind that used to be used by miners to bring light into tunnels and caves several generations back.

In addition to the blankets the fireplace was an awful mess. The “chimney” was built around a natural crevice that went up and out to the surface. We found the opening when we lit a fire only to be driven outside by the smoke. A couple of hours later when Donovan was tramping around looking for wood he saw the soot encrusted snow around the opening. Donovan has cleaned it out as good as he can for now by dropping a weighted bag up and down the crevice (on a long rope) until most of the dirt and debris fell through. My job was to sweep it up and carry it out. He spent half a day fabricating a chimney cap for where the smoke comes out to try and keep ice and snow from clogging the opening. We’ll have to check it on a regular basis but it is doing its job as I write this. Tree debris (and animals?) will also be a potential problem as the opening is under a couple of good sized evergreens but at least it is somewhat hidden.

During the chimney cleaning process we both wore bandanas over our faces and goggles over our eyes but it didn’t help much; man what a mess. If I was desperate for a bath before I’m just about crying for one in my sleep now. My hair is disgusting and I have to keep it wrapped up to keep bits and pieces of stuff from getting into everything I try and do, especially while I’m cooking. My pillow is just plain nasty. The whole situation is so gross there are few words that are graphic enough.

Dirt and filth in general is a problem. We’ve designated the smaller cave opening as a kind of “mud room.” We’ll store wood in there and stomp off in there to prevent tracking snow and dirt into the main living area. The fireplace room is where we’ll cook, sleep, and whatever else. We’re sleeping in front of the fire but Donovan plans on making two bed frames soon to get us up off the ground. The floor is really cold even with cedar boughs for cushion.

We set up a temporary outhouse around the corner from the cave entrance but we’ve also been forced due to weather to keep a bucket of sawdust handy. The sawdust isn’t exactly saw dust but some type of animal bedding. Or that is what Donovan called it … it looks like hamster bedding to me but he said you sometimes find it in horse stalls. Whatever. It absorbs what it needs to absorb and that is good enough for me. It is much better than traipsing out to the outhouse where it feels like something vital is freezing off every time you go.

For my part I’m looking through all of the stuff in the big cavern trying to find what is in there and organize it. What a bunch of junk; formica counters, old metal bits of cars or tractors especially axles, ball bearings, old furniture and other house furnishings. It looks a lot like the thrift stores that one of my roommates like to frequent for “vintage” stuff. Maybe I should have such a bad attitude; actually I know I shouldn’t. I don’t have any business complaining. This really is bounty and beggars can’t be choosers. I’m just not sleeping very well and I’m getting cranky. I’m cold and every little noise wakes me up. I’ve got a lot on my mind. And worst of all and abysmally stupid is that I’m lonely.

Despite myself I got used to the almost claustrophobic closeness between people in the bunker. It eased up some as the convoys headed out but mostly because everyone was beginning to emotionally distance themselves from people they might never see again. I wasn’t close with too many people so it wasn’t as bad for me as it was for some but I do still wonder if they ever made it where they were going and know it is doubtful that I’ll ever know. But then there was Donovan. We got real close, close enough to regularly get on each other’s nerves and then I thought we were getting to be really good friends.

I think I might have hurt his feelings a little yesterday. I didn’t mean to, he just kind of threw me off. I was trying to clean up where I had made rice griddle cakes for lunch. The griddle cakes are easy, basically just a regular pancake batter that you add cooked rice to to make it go further. But as I’m standing there trying to figure out the best way to clean a cast iron skillet if you can’t wash it he gets all up in my personal space and startles me.

“What are you doing?!”

He kind of looks at me and then explains, “I was trying to make a pass.”

That was not only the last thing I would have thought of it scared me a little because I’ll be honest and say that I’ve been thinking warm thoughts about Donovan and feeling pretty embarrassed about it. “Why?”

I guess my question threw him off because he sighed, leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms and told me, “Because it seemed like a good idea at the time but you aren’t making it easy.”

And then for some totally unknown reason I had to mess it up by replying, “Well, I’m not an easy type of girl.”

He just kind of looked at me real hard like he was seriously thinking over what I’d said and then he told me, “No. No you’re not are you.” And then he just walked away. Just like that I managed to put a big dent in what could have been the beginning of something maybe nice. Same way I’ve always managed to run the guys off. Laura used to tell me I was too “alpha” for even the most alpha male in the highschool and that I made them fell small or inadequate because I didn’t play up to them. I just never have been able to go all breathy and say, “Ooooo, you are just so strong and …” whatever else you are supposed to say to guys to make them feel good about themselves. I don’t have any problem saying thank you, good job, or that kind of stuff but I guess that isn’t exactly what guys are looking for. I don’t even know why I’m bothering to worry this to death now; Donovan has been keeping his distance again.

It’s not that before Donovan I never seriously thought about making the time for that type of thing; I did feel young and pretty once upon a time though it feels like maybe that was a millions years ago and a completely different person. But still, if Donovan and I are going to be the only two people for a long, long time maybe we could have seen if our friendship would have supported the other type of relationship as well. I don’t want to say that he’s pulled a Moshe on me because that isn’t it at all. I think I just projected some of my needs onto him and … he was basically just being nice because we were in tight quarters for a while and because we really do need each other.

I’d already noticed that now that we have some space to move he’s taking advantage of it. I don’t see him much during the day unless we are working on a project together (like cleaning the chimney) and he was the one that set up the separate beds on either side of the fire place. Yeah, I'm embarrassed to say I wouldn't have complained if he hadn't even if it would be asking for trouble I'm not sure I'm ready for. I mean, that whole sleeping together does make me seem like I’m an “easy” girl but like he put it, it was all about survival. Only maybe I got it into my head there was another component to it. Well, now I need to get that out of my head.

I don’t see as I have much choice but there is a part of me that wonders where all of this could have lead. Donovan and I are friends. But on the other hand I realized last night that I don’t even know what his first name is. How’s that for a little weirdness? I’ve known the man nearly two year and he’s used my first name since the beginning but all I’ve ever called him was Donovan. That’s all I heard anyone call him. I kept trying to get up the nerve to ask him what his first name was but for some reason I couldn’t. He’ll probably want to know why I’m asking after all this time and I just don’t have a good enough reason to be prying into stuff like that if he hasn’t volunteered it before now.

I almost got up the nerve over a hot drink after we had been dragging up more of our supplies from the half-track. I fixed an old timey recipe that Mrs. Epstein said her grandmother used to make. You mix equal parts honey and apple cider vinegar (both things I found in the boxes back in the big cavern) and then use a little bit of that in water to drink. I tried it in hot water and it was really good and kicked the sore throat that Donovan and I both had from all the dry air. I opened my mouth on the question only he took off real fast after he was done.

I could swear Donovan is acting skittish for some reason, like he doesn’t want to be around me. And I don’t really think I’m imagining it and it hurts my feelings some. Maybe I’ve been in his space too much, or he needed a break from being “nice” to me. I’ve just always had one or two good friends that I could talk to and the last year or so has been hard for me in that respect. I miss Laura - and Moshe despite what happened - and I think I was trying to replace them with Donovan.

Laura and I continued text each other a couple of times a day even if we didn’t always get to see each other. Moshe was kind of like a big brother by default and we would sometimes get into three-way text sessons when we were goofing around missing each other's company. I didn’t have anyone specific in the bunker but Chandler and I developed a rapport and Laine was a pretty good friend there at the end but it still wasn't quite the same. Donovan and I had a good working relationship and I thought he was a friend, he even said he was a friend, but maybe friend is too strong a word for it and now he’s feeling crimped or lonely for like guy-company or something. I know he doesn’t have real high an opinion of females on occasion. Certainly the thing I did with "the pass" he said he was making must have thrown a monkey wrench into the works.

On the other hand maybe there was something because he'd go all cross-eyed if he didn’t know where I was at. For instance, I had been working in the big cavern trying to make some headway on getting organized but all of a sudden I just got a craving for some outside-ness. The big cavern sometimes reminds me too much of Level 5 and I just have to get out and breathe. I decided to walk down to the half-track and bring a couple of tools back so that I could dismantle something into small enough pieces that I could. I just sat on the bumper for a few minutes and it turned into a few minutes more than I had expected it to take to get back to the cave.

By the time I got back Donovan looked fit to be tied and spoiling for a fight. I nearly gave him one too but then decided it wasted less energy to apologize and go back to doing what I was doing. I still don’t get what happened, it’s not like he reports all of his movements to me before (or after) he does them. That was before “the pass” and he hasn’t said boo to me about not giving him a heads up where I’m going to be. He hasn’t come looking for me either. I’m so confused and this is so stupid. You’d think I was a little girl dealing with my first crush. Why do I have to make everything so hard and complicated?

Chapter Thirteen

2010-03-07T19:05:00.000-08:00

Chapter Thirteen

“A what?”

“A cave!”

Donovan came down the steps and took the notebook paper out of my hand. “Emma. Emma! Stop waiving that in my face already. What is this and where did you get it?”

So I explained it to him and he sat down on the porch steps to read it for himself.

I’ll give it one more day just in case. I’ll sit and watch the road one more time and then, if they don’t come, then I’ve made up my mind what I’m going to do. They were supposed to be here weeks ago. I kept thinking that Dad would drive up any day and it wasn’t any big deal at first because I had the others for company only they’re all gone now.

Dad and I hauled everything up here. That was the plan, we would bug out to this cabin and wait things out. It only took a day and a half since we used my truck and his trailer too. We even managed to get the dumb cow up here and she never cooperates for nothing.

I would be with them now if it wasn’t for my stupid truck. I spent all my birthday money and the money from working on Mr. Brewster’s farm last summer and the thing let me down right when I needed it most. Dad said not to worry about it but to start moving everything into the cave and he was going to go back and get Mom and Cindy and be back before night, but they never came.

I waited and was almost ready to walk out the next morning when Jen, Kermit, and Lisa showed up in Kermit’s jeep. They were totally freaking. Kermit’s dad told him to take the girls and run up here since he knew we had a root cellar in the cabin. I let them stay even though they said they hadn’t seen my parents. I knew that mom wouldn’t mind; Dad would have something to say about it but Kermit’s dad and mine were buddies from a long ways back. I figured he wouldn’t yell too loud and then maybe Kermit’s dad would owe him and he wouldn’t look at me so cross-eyed when I asked Jen to the prom. Mr. Barlow was always cleaning his gun every time I came over to ask if Jen could go someplace. Dad was the same way when Kermit came over to ask if Cindy could go out. I heard them laughing about it one time. Kermit and I never thought it was very funny.

Of course Dad would really be cleaning his gun if he knew the kind of stuff that Kermit was up to. I could have killed him, he brought his whole stash with him. I told him to hide the stuff out in the woods so dad wouldn’t find it. Not that he did what I told him to, if he had maybe they would be alive. I found out later that he hid it back in the big cavern after I showed them where everything was. The three of them helped me get everything moved in – figured it would be a good way to soften Dad up to them staying – and we only tripped over that stupid lip a couple of times.

Things got worse after the Bad Day. I can still hear the girls screaming when the rocks fell and the wind blew. The radio stopped working that day too and we couldn’t get any news. We kept talking about going to town but I wasn’t sure if we’d be able to get over the road because of all the ash and downed trees. Kermit’s four wheel drive wasn’t always reliable.

Ash was everywhere and I kept trying to make them at least put a bandana over their face when they went outside but they wouldn’t even though it made their eyes water and their skin itch. They said I wasn't their boss. The girls would only listen to Kermit and he was acting like a loser. Over the next few days we found a lot of animals dead in the forest. When we went down to the river we saw it was full of stuff and really muddy and gray. Then we started seeing the dead bodies float by. I think that was the beginning of the end. The girls really started freaking out. We were all coughing all the time by then but they were coughing more than me. A lot more.

Kermit’s answer for everything was a pill. The pills helped them to deal with stuff. The pills helped them when the coughing got worse. The pills … the pills were just an excuse. Kermit like his pills and he was getting his sisters hooked too. It got to be where they were bombed out of their heads most of the time. Then it started getting cold which was really crazy since it was summer. The girls only had like shorts and tank tops so they had to share my clothes or stay in the cave next to the fire. One day I came back from watching the road to find they were completely out of it and playing in the cold, muddy ash; it had started to sleet and they wanted to make mud pies for some stupid reason.

The next day Lisa started running a fever and Kermit wasn’t far behind her. We blamed the weather at first but they didn't have a cold after all. I think whatever was wrong with their lungs finally got too bad and they just … they started coughing so hard it sounded like they were getting tore up on the inside. One night Kermit started coughing up all this blood and then he just stopped breathing. I like totally couldn’t believe it. I'd known him like my whole life and suddenly he just was gone. Lisa lasted another week but Jen and I woke up one morning and she had all these bloody bubbles in the corner of her mouth and her nose. She’d gone some time during the night.

Jen and I were OK for about two weeks. We weren’t fighting and she seemed to be like trying to pull herself back together but then I caught her hiding her handkerchief; it had blood in it. She cried so hard she puked which was gross but I felt really bad for her. I used to think that I loved Jen but by then I knew it had just been kid stuff. Some days I hardly felt anything about anything. On those days all I did was sit and watch the road. I must have been sitting there when Jen took all of the pills that Kermit had left.

Jen has been gone almost three weeks. I woke up this morning and it was snowing again; that makes ten days straight now. And I was coughing again. And there was blood in my mouth after one really bad time. So, I’m going to sit here one last time. If they show up everything will be OK but if they don’t, everything will still be OK because I’m going to go to sleep and all my troubles will be over with one way or the other.

I was trying to not think about how heartbreaking the letter was. The boy couldn’t have been any more than sixteen or seventeen. The longer Donovan stayed quiet the more time it gave me to feel bad. I wondered how many times he was going to read the letter. Eventually I couldn’t stand it anymore and I asked, “So what do you think? Where do you think it is? It really does say there is a cave around here, it has to be the one we’ve been looking for.”

“Take it easy. Let’s not count our chickens before they’re hatched Emma.”

“But …”

“I’m not saying that this isn’t what we’ve been looking for. We just need to move careful. If some of his friends knew enough to get to this place early on, that means that maybe others maybe new enough to find it later on.”

I wanted to get angry at him for not sharing my excitement but he was right. Security was his thing so I knew I needed to let him to do it. I’d gotten use to his guns a long time ago. They are basically just part of who he is and was what he asked for even before he asked for his pants after he woke up from surgery. I learned it was less work to leave them under his cot than to have to keep putting them up and then him asking for them back. He always seemed to know when I’d messed with them even if I hadn’t actually moved them.

He had his sidearm out; he’d taken it out of its holster before we got out of the half-track. I had the rifle slung over my shoulder. Then he took the rifle back and holstered the sidearm.

“Emma, I’ve asked you not to just stand out in the open like this.”

“Uh, um I got …”

“I know,” he said real patient. “But you’ve got to start remembering. We aren’t the only people left in the world, we just don’t know where they are, how many there are, or what kind of people they are.”

As lectures went, that was a pretty mild one compared to some he’d dished out but when he put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Please. Do you want to leave me all alone?” it really sunk in that there was more than one reason why the team of two we had built was important.

“You think that’s what happened to the kid? He was alone and couldn’t handle it?”

“That played a pretty big role if this letter is authentic. If he had really thought his family was alive he could have siphoned the gas out of his truck and put it in the jeep and gone looking for them. I don’t see either vehicle around here though. For all we know the kid could have been out of his head and made it all up or been wandering around.”

“Oh man, wandering … I hadn’t even thought of that. The cave – assuming there is one – could be anywhere.”

“Relax Emma. We’ll look.”

“But where could it be?”

“Let’s assume he’s letter is accurate. The cave is away from the shack, but not too far that he couldn’t easily haul stuff from a truck parked at the shack to it.”

I added, “And … yeah, it says you walk into it. That could be versus climbing down into it or up into it.”

“Now wait, didn’t he say it was a pain to lift some of the stuff over the lip?”

“Yeah and that his friends were surprised by the cave because they’d only been thinking of the root cellar to hide in.”

We looked around us. The shack was thrown together in a flat place between the hills and the descent to the river. We theorized if the cave opening is large enough to walk into carrying boxes or bags yet not close enough to the shack to be seen from there maybe it is set at an angle or set back from the shack in some way or maybe even camouflaged. We probably weren’t looking for a hole in the ground because that would mean a ladder and surely he would have mentioned one instead of saying that two people could move stuff into the cave.

“Let’s try over there,” Donovan said pointing to some boulders that tumbled out of a heavily treed edge of the closest ascending area.

We’d been looking over an hour and I was getting depressed. We had walked a good piece away from the shack and half-track and still hadn’t found anything. We thought we had found it once but it was only an overhanging ledge.

I sighed and said, “I guess you were right, he must have wandered her from someplace else.”

“That’s not what I said. I said that was one possibility, not that it’s what definitely happened. Why don’t we take a break, eat lunch, and then move closer to the river area.”

I was tired and cold. I wanted to take a break and take a load off my feet for a minute but there wasn’t any rocks or stumps to sit on, there wasn’t even trees right there so I leaned against what I thought was another little overhang … and promptly fell in.

“Emma!”

“Uh … I think I found it.”

He broke the snow drift away so he could fit through, trying hard not to laugh when a big wad of snow fell from the ceiling and hit me square in the face.

“Well glad you are amused. Now shut up and help me up.”

He did after he wound up his flashlight and looked around in the small room we were in. “There’s another opening in the back here. Come on.”

We’d definitely found “the cave.” What a mess. It looked like some of the dorm rooms would look close to the end of the semester when dirty clothes, fast food containers, and sundry other flotsam would pile just as high and as deep as it could get. It smelled like the dorms would too, like it needed to be condemned by the floor safety monitor. And it had a sour smoky smell from the wood ashes that overflowed from what we assume is supposed to be some type of fireplace. The bedding piled around the living space was filthy and rank as well.

There was yet another wide crevice, sort of like a hall way, in the back of that room and that opened into an even larger cavern that was full of junk. Well, not really junk but lots of stuff. It looked like a cross between a barn, a storage center, someone’s attic, and the junk room of a maintenance shed. Some of that stuff has been there a long time.

“Why didn’t they live in the big cavern instead of the smaller one?”

“They were kids and it was too much work to clean things up in the big one more than likely. This smaller room was probably easier to heat too.”

“Oh. Why …”

“Emma, let’s save the why’s and think about whether we’re staying here.”

“Why wouldn’t we?”

“Security, shelter, food, and water. And we need to see if whatever sickened those kids in the letter is still around to start with.”

“Well gee, aren’t you a spoil sport.” But I said it so that he knew I wasn’t really against what he was trying to do. There is a time to be all giddy and happy and then there is a time to use some logic and commonsense. I was actually glad to leave the cave and go back to the half-track for lunch.

While we ate we talked it over and we are pretty sure the conclusions we came to are the right ones. Donovan explained that he was in the Philippines on some assignment right after one of the volcanic explosions and there is this stuff that forms called “vog” which is a combination of volcanic ash and fog – same as smoke and fog makes smog – that when breathed can cause lots of respiratory problems and flu like symptoms. Severe cases left untreated can turn into a type of pneumonia or even death because all the little air sacks inside the lungs get coated in what amounts to concrete when the ash and water particles in the lungs mix. There may have been similar type problems from the ash that fell from Impact Day. And who knows what was in some of that ash. The first salvagers from our bunker reported skin irritations but that tapered off real quick. The kids going out and playing in the stuff when they were drugged up only increased their exposure. Then as it got colder and they suffered whatever other depravations and shocks they suffered it just … well, they just didn’t survive it.

The only haze that remains is high up in the sky and it may very well be years before that completely clears up. The snow has settled the heavier particles and keeps them trapped. If the snow and ice ever melt we’ll have a mess but for now it looks OK.

So that kicked out the concern over what made the kids sick; we felt safe that the cave could be the “shelter” part of the equation. Next came food and water. We’ve been very careful about filtering all of our drinking water, only using the cleanest snow, but those filters won’t last forever. We have to be able to secure a good source of drinking water and we think we have.

When we went back to the cave Donovan remarked that the kids had to have been getting water from some place. There isn’t any in the shack or in the empty root cellar beneath the shack, the river was contaminated according to the letter (and is now frozen over from our investigation) so we went looking around. Sure enough in the back of the big cavern was yet another series of caverns and we found where rope had been tied like a hand rail. You go down a sort of hill and there is what Donovan says is a spring fed pool. Where the water goes when he leaves the cave we don’t know and I sure as heck am not volunteering to find out. That water is cold! Worse, there are things living in the pool.

I thought Donovan was going to split something vital when I scooped up some water to test with his handy dandy pH kit and found this … thing … looking back at me. I made him jump a mile when I screamed because of the awful echo down there. When Donovan got a good look at the creature he said it couldn’t look because it was one of those blind troglobite things that live their whole livecycle inside caves where there isn’t any light. Oh, I could have hit him. It was a shrimp looking thing but it was magnified by the test tube so that it looked huge. Not that I’m afraid of bugs – Florida’s state bird was the cockroach – but anyone would have let out a yell if they saw that thing without expecting to. There are also some funky looking fish down in there.

The pool is actually kind of deep, I wouldn’t want to fall in. Donovan says he is going to rope it off somehow just in case one of us slips on the slope and tumbles down. There was absolutely no reason for him to look at me like that when he said it. OK, so I trip and stumble a little more than he does, but come on it’s certainly not a crime.

So with that – the water trickles out of a limestone deposit like a really small waterfall – we had the fresh water figured out. That was shelter and water. The food is kind of iffier though we are better off than we were before even if we don’t stay.

We are down to only a few self-heat meals but we’ve got another seven months of food packed away in the back of the half-track, nearly eight if we are careful. We looked for the animals the boy mentioned but nothing. You could see where they were put at one point but we suspect the kids may have slaughtered them for food or they died or they were turned loose and died. Whichever way you cut it they are long gone. The dung is well dried and while it smells a bit of animals in the big cavern it doesn’t smell all that bad like they were in there long. Also there is a bunch of animal feed in there … field corn, wheat, millet seeds and a room full of what Donovan called silage. I think silage is like a mixed salad for the animals to go along with the grains, kind of a diet balancer but I don’t need Donovan laughing at me anymore today so I’m not going to ask. I don’t know for sure how he expects to but apparently he said it will make good compost material

I’m so irritated with myself. I’ve squealed and screamed just enough to remind him that I’m a girl and he’s getting all he-man and annoying again right when I almost had him broke of that bad habit. Although sometimes it is kind of fun.

Oh good grief, I’m getting off track and that is all Donovan’s fault. We’ve got the tent pitched in the smallest front cave but for some reason he thought that maybe I needed my space or something so he’s sleeping like a mummy and I’m lying here writing because I can’t get to sleep because I’m cold.

Back to the food, Donovan swears that we can actually eat some of the feed. We can grind the corn for cornmeal and the wheat too, even if we have to do it between two big rocks. There isn't all that much but I figure every little bit helps. There’s some other stuff in there but not too awful much. Some jugs of crystallized honey, something that Donovan called blackstrap molasses that is so thick it won’t even pour, some salt and then other pantry type odds and ends. It looks like they just threw everything from the kitchen (and rest of the house) into boxes, bags, and clothes baskets and it has sat right where it was first put down. I got itchy to go in there and start inventorying and organizing things but Donovan said what was making him itch was the bedding and stuff in the kids’ living quarters.

So it looks like we are going to stay but before we can move in we’ve got to do a little spring cleaning. Or should I say it looks like I’m going to get stuck doing some spring cleaning. Donovan said he wants to scout around a little bit tomorrow. We still don’t know what happened to the three other bodies. We don’t think they are in the cave but we haven’t had the light to explore the whole thing very well. Some of that will be helped with tomorrow after we clean out the wood stove and light it. We’ll bring in the wind up lamp that I’m using now for our brightest light. And Donovan said he’ll make some torches for us after he figures out a way to make some wall sconces for them. All very medieval sounding but maybe that is what the world has been reduced to. Hope we have a second Renaissance before I’m old and gray.

Chapter Twelve

2010-03-07T19:04:00.000-08:00

Chapter Twelve

Snug as a bug in a rug … or not. But we are getting there. It hasn’t been easy but we’ve at least started in a small way. That night outside of Elkton was the last time I really felt like writing for a while. The cold, monotony, and ultimate failure of our daily searches would get to us and we’d get cranky or the silence between us would get pretty intense. Then we’d snap back and be fine. Maybe if there’d been more people to share the workload with or bridge the space between us that our personal baggage created … but then again, maybe not. More than likely that would just have been a way of avoiding having to deal with each other’s issues.

It was during one of the good days that we ran into one of the worst things and one of our lowest days when we were blessed the greatest. Go figure. It’s like we had to experience a high to truly appreciate the shock of the low and experience the low to truly understand the high. It seems that there are days when everything is a lesson within a lesson in this life.

After Elkton we hit what Donovan called “Hill Country.” Every once in a while an outcropping of gray limestone or yellow sandstone would escape being completely covered by snow and I’d get a rambling lecture. He would tell me that the gray limestone was used by the early settlers for fireplaces and fire rocks as it withstands intense heat really well. There is also a blue limestone but I’ve yet to see any, or recognize it if I have seen it. He said around limestone you have good red clay and it makes good farmland even if you have to terrace it. The red sandstone has deposits of iron in it. There is also yellow and white sandstone in the area and sometimes you’ll see them all mixed together. The dirt where the sandstone is primarily yellow clay and it makes for poor farmland no matter what you do to it; it won’t hold fertilizer or mix very well with compost. Both types of rock will form caves which was an advantage to us since it meant that we didn’t have to look for a particular rock before we started looking for a cave.

“The area doesn’t have the same density of caves as Carter County but there are quite a few around here. If we had headed south from Elkton we could have gone to Glover’s Cave. That cave is pretty big and has been used since before the white man crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains.”

“Why didn’t we just stop there? Maybe there were other people and …”

“I thought about it Emma. I just …”

I was a tad on the cranky side right about then and getting tired from tramping fruitlessly through the snow day in and day out. “Just what? What would have been so bad about checking if we were that close? What if there was a big survivor post there and … I don’t know … I just don’t understand? I thought the point was to like find a good place and stuff.”

He startled me with his angry reply. “If you laugh I swear I’ll twist your tail.”

Despite the fact that Donovan can be a pain, cantankerous, and that he suffers from an advanced case of testosterone poisoning he rarely makes direct threats like that and when he does he usually doesn’t mean it. This time I really think he did.

At the shocked look on my face he growled, “I … I mean it Emma.”

Running out of patience I asked, “Do I look like I’m laughing?! Tell me already.”

“I had a … a dream,” he mumbled.

My jaw must have dropped because he went stomping off, swinging the walking stick like he wanted to beat something with it … probably me.

“Hey! Hey Donovan, stop already will you?”

“Why? So you can laugh? Or worst yet, maybe you think I’m possessed or something. I’m a grown man Emma … I don’t need your patronizing.”

“Yeah, well I think you’re possessed all right. Possessed of a severe case of hard headedness and unwarranted defensiveness. You surprised me is all. If I’d said the same thing to you you’d have done more than just stand there with your mouth hanging open like I did.”

He finally stopped and let me catch up with him. “Maybe,” he muttered.

“No maybes about it. So, you had a dream. A good dream of someplace else being where we should head or …?”

I didn’t get to finish before he said, “Someone took you OK?. It was bad. Like Level 5 only the nightmare version. And something about the people who did it … I don’t know Emma. I don’t know exactly what it was or is, I just know that somewhere around Glover’s Cave is something bad and if we go there I won’t … won’t be able to protect you. It woke me up in a cold sweat.”

I looked at him. He wasn’t happy about the dream … having it or telling me about it. I doubted seriously he was fibbing just as an excuse to explain why he didn’t want to go that way. That isn’t like him at all. I ignored his prickliness and put my hand on his arm and I could feel that his defensive shields were fully engaged. “So … OK. Glover’s Cave is not a good idea. Next time just clue me in so I won’t step in the stinky stuff.”

“Just like that?” he asked suspiciously.

“Sure. Why not? You’ve never given me any reason to doubt you before. Why start now? Your reason might be a little … unusual, but it can’t be any stranger than us wandering around playing Last Man On Earth … not the Charlton Heston or Will Smith version, but the original. However, let’s pick a different ending to our biopic. Vincent Price may have been classier but he still wound up dead.”

He looked at me and then snorted, “You really are a geek aren’t you?”

“That’s geek-ess; geek is the male form of the noun and you said you refused to think of me like a guy friend.” I was really cutting up and acting stupid to get his mind off of what was obviously something he was very uncomfortable admitting to. I wanted to let him know it really was OK. I was exaggerating the swing of my hips, playing up the girl angle, and looked back over my shoulder to bat my eyes really goofy. We both started laughing, Donovan in surprise if nothing else, and then there was nothing beneath my feet and I was falling.

Before I could scream I landed hard enough to knock the wind out of myself. I could hear Donovan calling my name right above me but it took me nearly a half minute to do more than wheeze.

“Emma!”

“S’OK … knocked … wind …”

His voice sounded a little less frantic when he asked, “You sure? Nothing broken, twisted, mangled?”

“Give … give me a sec. Landed on something … ow! … what is this?”

I pulled my flashlight out of my pack because the dim light from the hole in the ceiling that I had fallen through wasn’t enough, especially not with Donovan half stuck through it. I finally got a good look at what I had landed on and scrabbled away. Then I started mewling and then outright screaming because every where I turned my light they were stacked like cordwood.

“Emma! What is it?! Emma!!”

“I … want … out!! Donovan!!! I want out now!!!” I yelled near the top of my lungs. The sound of my voice bounced back to me in an eerie echo.

I panicked. I freely admit it. I could hear him calling my name, trying to calm me down, but I was beyond reason. I ran into another stack of them, knocking some … things … over causing me to scream some more. Then I hit a wall, rolled through an opening and just kept running and climbing and sliding. I hit a tumble of rocks about knee high and I pitched top or tail and then punched through a thin snow drift, landing outside in the light and fresh air.

Donovan must have heard the crash and my crying. Yeah, I was crying. When I say I panicked I really did it all the way. He slid down the hill and I guess he couldn’t figure out what was going on. He had his gun out.

“Emma! Emma!! Calm down. Listen to me. Was it an animal? A person?” He was trying to push me behind him to protect me and I was trying to practically crawl up in his arms.

Then he slapped me. Not hard, but hard enough. Later he even made me sit still while he checked to see if he had bruised me any. I don't hold it against him; the shock of it was just enough to finally break the grip of anarchy my brain had descended into.

“Donovan. Oh … oh … I,” and while I was still crying at least I was getting back in control and after a few deep breaths I had myself locked down again even if I was breathing like a baby elephant was sitting on my chest.

“Emma what the @#$% just happened?!”

“I’m … I’m sorry … I’m … It …,” I grabbed him again when he started to move.

“Come on, we’re knee deep in snow. It’s not so deep over there. Was it an animal? Are you … claustrophobic or something?”

“Donovan I … I think …,” I had to take another deep breath before I could tell him. “I think it … it was … a … a butcher shop.”

“A what?!”

But I couldn’t answer him. I was under control, but just barely.

“Emma, stay here. I’m going to check …”

“No!” Then in a calmer voice I forced myself to say, “No, I’m coming with you.”

He gave me the eye and asked, “Are you sure?”

I nodded and then followed him through the crevice I had shot out of and back to the small cave. I had a hard time being there but we didn’t stay long. Only long enough for Donovan to understand why I called it a butcher shop and why I reacted the way I did.”

I led the way back into the light, then sat on a rock.

“Stay here. I need to take another look around in there.”

When he came back out he shared the rock I was sitting on. He looked as green as I felt but he put his arm around me which helped settle me down and warm us both up after the shock. After collecting himself he said gently, his voice shaking a bit too, “They’ve been gone a long time Emma. There’s no blood on the floor in there or in the ice surrounding the bits and parts so they were dead before they were …,” he belched, shuddered, and then continued. “You saw the man sitting at the table? It was likely him. There was a journal. Last date was six months after Impact Day. Didn’t make any kind of sense and wasn’t really legible either. His face and hands were covered in sores. He, I think he, took his own life. A lot … a lot of the corpses of the … the corpses appear emaciated. My … my guess is they survived the initial impacts and then the cold set in and the food ran out … and then people got desperate. There are all sorts of stories from history about this happening. As horrible as it is we shouldn’t be surprised given the extent of the catastrophe and lack of game we have seen in the area.”

Even the Bible speaks of it happening. I looked it up in my Concordance later and was surprised at how many times it came up (Deuteronomy 28:53-57; Leviticus 26:29; 2 Kings 6:26-29; Jeremiah 19:9; Ezekiel 5:10; Lamentations 4:10; John 6: 53-56). It causes an instinctive and distinctive reaction in the psyche of most people. It’s one of the greatest cross-cultural taboos yet it still happens more often than anyone wants to admit. Something will cause an individual to shred that last boundary of humanity and cross into the truly unspeakable.

We walked back to the half-track and moved our base camp a little sooner than we had planned. Neither one of us believed we would find what we wanted near that cave. Fuel was running low and our discovery cast a pall over the next several days. I think we were beginning to lose confidence or maybe hope.

After dinner the last night at the next camp before we moved yet again, I left the fire to go read my Bible when Donovan said, “Don’t go. It’s … it’s warmer here.”

I turned and asked him, “You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks.”

As I was sitting back down on the stump I had been using as a camp chair he asked me, “Why do you?”

“Why do I … oh you mean this?” I asked pointed to the leather bound book that had belonged to my father. At his grunt I answered, “Different reasons.”

He squinted one of his “elaborate or else” looks so I shrugged and said, “Every foible and problem known to man can be found within these pages. There really is nothing new under the sun … theft, murder, lying, cheating … sexual deviancies, mental illness … bastardy, infertility, loneliness … slavery, kidnapping, bullying … arrogance, promiscuousness, fear, loathing … cults, gambling, addictions … dystopia, war, pestilence, taxes …”

He humphed as a way to stop my list and said, “Sounds depressing.”

“No because there’s also adventure, excitement, exploration … stories of love, stories of redemption … hope, faith, miracles … heroic deeds … promises kept and promises to look forward to. I’ve never found any other textbook that has ever taught me as much and kept me coming back for more time and again.”

He gave a chuff of laughter and said, “You almost make it sound real.”

“It is.”

“OK, so what are you reading tonight?”

“I’ve been in the Psalms. King David was quite a guy, yet he was his own worst enemy. But when he had it right he really had it right.” I opened at the place I had marked and read Psalm 42. Donovan was pretty quiet after that but I think the depression had lifted just a little, for both of us

In the gray light of the morning neither one of us seemed to have been able to hold onto the feelings of hope and renewal. Call me weak or call me human, the sights I had seen still haunted me and I couldn’t seem to shake it. I wasn’t the only one. We were quiet as we packed up and were sharing a cup of instant cocoa when he said, “Emma, we don’t have that much fuel left. I … I underestimated what it was going to take …”

“No regrets.”

“Uh … what?”

“I said I have no regrets. I’d do it all again … except maybe that cave; that I could live without repeating.”

He snorted, “You and me both.”

“Where to next partner?”

“You sure you want me picking? I haven’t had much luck up to this point.”

I’m not sure why I said it. It sounded even cornier than I thought it would. “I’ll follow where you lead.”

He looked at me real hard and then said, “See that track over there? There’s a gravel road under the snow. I think it goes back down towards the river we’ve been seeing. Could be a fish camp or campground along there. Doesn’t look like too many downed trees either; the hollows appear like they were pretty well protected compared to all of the other areas we’ve been in.”

“People?”

“Don’t know … but … I just don’t know Emma. As much noise as this thing makes,” he said kicking our ride’s front tire, “and that we haven’t been trying to be quiet, and someone should have been by or we would have scared up an animal or two if there were any. But nothing. Nada. Zip.”

With that less than happy thought we were off again. The grade was steeper than anything I had ever driven on and I felt the tires and tracks taking turns slipping in the snow.

“Want me to drive?” he asked when he saw how tense I was.

“If it gets steeper maybe. I can’t believe anyone would drive this on a regular basis.”

“Might not have. We’re pretty far back in the hills. Could be a logging road or might go to … some … one’s …” His voice trailed off and then, “Stop … that look like a house to you?”

House was too kind a description once we reached it. We’d also reached the end of the road.

We got out of the half-track and started looking around. We found him at the foot of the steps at the rear of the shack. Here was another one that had been gone a long while. The difference was the way he was dressed … or not dressed. His head was pillowed on a once expensive looking down jacket, like he’d just stopped to take a nap and gotten too comfortable to move. But before Donovan covered his face I could swear he had a look of peace about him. No animal had gotten to the body so it looked a bit like a well-preserved ice mummy.

Donovan was checking the shack to see if we had another one of the desperate few while I stayed outside. You know how it is when you are standing around with nothing to do and no one to tell you no, you get nosy. There was an old mailbox – why would anyone have one out in the middle of nowhere like that anyway – and when I flipped down the lid I was surprised to see a few sheets of notebook paper. I pulled it out and before long I called, “Donovan!” When he stepped out onto the porch I said, “There’s a cave!”

Chapter Eleven

2010-03-07T19:03:00.000-08:00

Chapter Eleven

“Home?! You lived in a replica of Washington’s Monument.”

I was being facetious but he was serious and sad. He started reciting what sounded like a grade school report. “You’re looking at what is left of the Jeff Davis Monument. He was born very near this spot, and was the first and only president of the Confederacy. The monument is … was … 351 feet tall, an incredible feat of engineering for its time, and is … was the tallest unreinforced concrete obelisk in the world.” He looked at me and frowned. “You really aren’t impressed are you?”

“Donovan I’m cold and this is … weirding me out. I honestly thought we were in DC for a second. It was all Twilight Zoney and junk. I’ve never even heard of the Jeff Davis Monument and I’m from the south. Where are we anyway?”

“A placed called Fairview. You ever heard of Hopkinsville, KY?”

“Yeah, they had a big flour mill? And … a uh, a state mental health hospital too I think? I played a team from there back during my softball days.”

“You’ve never heard of the Monument but you knew about those two things? And what do you mean during your softball days? Girl you are strange.” He looked at me like I was a few clowns short of a circus and then said, “We’re not far from Hoptown. I went to highschool at Christian County High … home of the Colonels; colors were red, white, and blue. Made one of the biggest mistakes of my life there too.”

Part of me wanted to know what that “biggest” mistake was but I have a feeling he was just mentioning it so he could deny me the information. Instead I said, “Oh knock it off; I just have a kind of weird affinity for useless facts. Seriously though, you lived here? Do you want to like … look for your old house or something?”

Donovan sighed and said, “No. I doubt I could even find it even if it was still standing. A … a Mennonite bought the farm at auction and ripped down the old house to build one for his big family from what I heard. Besides, look around Emma. This place had houses all around the park and there isn’t anything as far as the eye can see. No trees. No houses. Nothing. Everything looks like it’s been washed completely clean and just covered up with snow.”

I could tell he was getting upset. “What do you want to do? We can … camp up against the monument or we can head on out. Or we could … Donovan!”

He’d stumbled and leaned against the half-track. He didn’t look good. “That settles it. We’re stopping here and I’m going to figure out some way to …”

“Emma I’m fine, just tired.”

“Bull honkey. You nearly died not all that long ago Superman and you’ve been playing hero keeping me warm at night and not getting any sleep yourself ‘cause I’m squashing you.”

“You’re not squashing me. Emma … Emma … what the heck are you doing girl?”

“I’m getting the tent. We’ll set up … let’s see … we’ll set up right inside the entrance to the monument. The top fell the other way. I’ll drive the half-track up there and block the entrance, disable it so the ghosts can’t drive it away and …”

I was mumbling to myself by that point trying to plan out what we would need when Donovan asked, “Anyone ever told you you’re more than a little fond of having your own way?” I treated it as a rhetorical question and got down to business.

By the time I was finished we had a relatively snug hole for the night. I could have wished for a place to hide the half-track better but we had to make do with what the Lord provided, not that I would have said it quite like that to Donovan. He was still giving me creeped out looks when I read my Bible each night. I was able to maneuver the vehicle so that it was wedged between two of the biggest fallen chunks in front of the entrance and you couldn’t even open the door on one side it was so close. The passenger door only opened into the entranceway of the obelisk and there was enough open steel framing inside that I could tie the tent to instead of having to worry about staking it down. I got our “cocoon” out of the cab and lined the small three-man tent and then when I noticed a few falling flakes I took panels from the destroyed elevator and made a lean-to to protect the tent in case the snow started coming down in earnest during the night.

Donovan had tried to help at first but he was looking bad and I didn’t have to beg him to just sit down and let me do things my way. “Emma, I’m …,” he sighed and shook his head.

“You’re what? Surprised that you aren’t every member of the League of Justice all rolled into one? Donovan, you’re there when I need you to be and I’m there when you need me to be. Let’s just call it even and … be friends. OK? You wouldn’t have this much trouble with the help if I was a guy would you?”

“You aren’t a guy. I’m not even going to pretend you are. I still don’t see what the …”

What he was going to say was lost in the sudden baying of a dog. I got excited and scrambled to go see where it was coming from when Donovan got the energy from some place to grab me around the waist and haul me backwards. “Grab those panels. Put them against the bottom of the door opening. See if you can move any of those chunks of concrete against them to hold them in place.”

“Why?!”

“Keep … your … voice … down,” he gritted out between his teeth.

I whispered, “Why?!”

“Any dog … or what passes for a dog around here … that has survived this long is going to be dangerous Emma. Can’t you imagine what it has been feeding on all these months?”

My stomach did a flip flop when I put two and two together. “The baying got closer and was followed by a second and then third one from different animals.”

“Crap! They’ve caught our scent.”

Without warning a large dog of indeterminate breed jumped on the hood of the half-track and was snarling wildly trying to dig in to get us. Donovan pulled his hand gun and shot, the sound impossibly loud within the concrete walls. Two more snarling monsters replaced the first one and Donovan shot and killed those as well. It was over so fast that shock didn’t even have time to set in. But neither one of us even breathed loud for nearly an hour waiting to see if three was all there was.

Eventually Donovan let me climb on the hood to get the nearly frozen carcasses off and then drag them a goodly distance away. It started to snow for real by the time I was finished and despite it all I was starving. I crawled back into our temporary home to find that Donovan had picked a dinner for me and had it heating … spaghetti and meat sauce, not the worst but not the best either. He made me eat something called a Millennium Bar on top of it. Geez, nearly 2000 calories in one meal if you can believe that. I watched Donovan choke down his last few bites and then try to keep it down. He really wasn’t looking good at all and I told him to crawl in the tent.

“Gotta secure that …”

“Already on it Chief,” I said with a salute.

That didn’t even get a sigh out of him so I knew he was bad off. He wanted to keep his boots on but I told him to stuff it and just get in the tent and warm it up. “I’ll be waiting up dear so don’t take too long.” At least he had enough energy to be a smart aleck that time.

But forget the waiting up stuff; by the time I got something figured out to make the door way difficult to get through … I found the old-fashioned “cage” security doors that had been blown in … and crawled in the tent he was fast asleep. I wasn’t far behind him. Survival is hard work.

Waking up the next morning was difficult. The floor was hard despite the padding I had tried to work out and it had snowed overnight making it painfully cold again. Donovan was dead to the world and it was scary how unconscious he was as I climbed out of the tent trying not to disturb the covers too much. The cold hit me like a ton of bricks and I almost couldn’t wait to get to the corner I’d set up as a “latrine.” Layers of clothing may keep you warm but they hinder other activities.

The white stuff was still coming down but the lean-to was doing what it was supposed to which was probably why we stayed so warm in the night. It was like being a bear in a den. But I knew if it got any colder we were going to need a fire. I ate breakfast while I arranged a BBQ ring not too far from the lean to entrance. But rocks don’t burn and we needed wood or something similar and I didn’t want to wait too much longer.

I moved the cage doors and climbed over the hood and out into a world even whiter than normal. My feet were getting cold scuffing at the ground looking for wood so I grabbed a piece of metal scaffolding from inside some of the fallen obelisk and started dragging it through the snow hunting for something, anything that would burn. I stumbled into a pile of stuff not too far from the monument that I thought was a small hill. I eventually figured out it had been some type of building; from a broken plaque I guessed it was the visitor center or gift shop.

It was in splinters but it was still dangerous work pulling stuff out and not slicing my gloves – or my hands – up on glass shards and chunks of other things. I managed to find a couple of items of interest to bring back to Donovan but firewood came first. I turned a sheet of drywall into a little sled and managed to pull back quite a bit of wood at a time rather than many trips of a small handful. The drywall slid over the top of the snow and didn’t bog down in my footsteps. I was on my third load when …

Well, rather than actually writing what Donovan had to say allow me to translate: bark, growl, snarl, pant, spank your behind until you can’t sit for a month of Sundays, snap, snarl, had me worried sick, grumble, bluster, mutter, threaten, yada, yada, yada.

“Yes dear. I’m sorry I didn’t call. Got hung up at the office and lost track of time. Mmmmm, what’s that cooking? Smells simply delicious.”

For a second I thought he’d had a heart attack or swallowed his tongue or something. Then he grabbed me by my shoulders and shook the heck out of me. I was right at the point of getting scared when he did something totally unexpected; he … hugged me … tight … and close. “Don’t ever do that again Emma. Leave a note, something. Wake me up preferably. Just don’t …”

If my knees hadn’t been locked we would have fallen. His face was completely gray. I mean really gray. You read about that stuff in books and hear people say, “he was a gray as a ghost” but you never really expect to see that color on a human face except in death. It’s all I could do to get him over to a big chunk of concrete so he could sit down. I ran to get whatever it was that was heating and this time it was something called mocha java.

“Here, drink.”

“You … you too. Did you eat breakfast? Emma it’s … it’s passed lunch. I … waited and you never …”

“I was getting wood. With the white stuff coming down I figured it couldn’t hurt to stay here another day to give us both time to recupe.”

“You mean give me time.”

“You, me, both of us. Does it matter? We’ll figure out which way to go from here. Get at least another good night of sleep in case we have to spend any more nights in the half-track. Get reorganized. Make a plan.”

He nodded and I started some meals heating and then started bringing in the wood that I’d found. Some of it was treated lumber and I set that to the side as a last resort but most of it was tree debris like you would find after a tornado. I was shoving in the last load when I brought in the two things that I had found for Donovan. “Look, I found a replacement for the crutch. I don’t know how useful these things are but at least you’ll have something until you leg is completely healed. One for you and maybe one for me if that one is too short for you.”

“Where did you find these?” Donovan asked running his hand over the lacquered, knobbledy wood of the walking sticks.

“Down in the debris of the place where I got the wood. It looks like there was a building out that way …”

“The gift shop or maybe the visitor center, I can’t remember; it’s been a long time since I was here. I guess they were selling these for souvenirs. Anything else in there?”

“Lots of stuff, I just couldn’t tell you what it is. Broken glass is all mixed in with everything and it’s a real mess. Oh, here’s the other things I found.” I took the little books and the buttons out of my coat pockets. Donovan nearly hypnotized himself turning those buttons over in his hand. They were brass buttons with CSA on them along with some other raised detail, and they looked good enough to be authentic.

“Wild Kentucky, Kentucky Home Cooking, and Confederate Cooking?” he asked when he finally looked at the books while I was starting a fire.

I shrugged. “We have the room and I figure, you know, maybe they’ll come in handy at some point.”

“Do you even know how to cook?”

“How do you think I survived on what little money I had in college? I sure as heck couldn’t afford to eat at the UC every day or at Burger King.”

“I got the idea that that family you lived with was well off.”

“Yeah, they were. They weren’t rich, rich if you know what I mean but they had enough to spoil their kids. But what do the Epsteins have to do with me?”

“I just figured ….” and he shrugged like I was supposed to understand his incomplete sentence.

“If you’re asking if my family was well off the answer is no. We did all right on Dad’s pay but he was an NCO. We got our groceries once a month from the commissary and they had to last until we went the next month. We drank powdered milk and Momma baked her own bread and would work part time every once in a while to have a little extra money for something.”

“So what … you went to college on loans?”

It was weird to have Donovan asking me questions about personal stuff which was a complete departure from the way things had been at the bunker but I figured whatever was up didn’t matter if it kept him looking more alive than he had been there for a while. “No. Scholarships and the sweat of my brow, at one time I was holding down four jobs at once just to pay for my room and board. I went over to the Epstein’s to eat with the family once a week and Mrs. Epstein always made sure that the leftovers went home with me.”

“Emma?”

“Hmm?”

“Don’t do that again.”

“Don’t do what … oh. I didn’t mean to cause problems. I just didn’t want to wake you. Time did get away from me and I was worried that you were doing that thing that I did where I couldn’t get warm and …”

“I know. Just … don’t do it again. I …,” he stopped. “I didn’t …,” he stopped again. “Just don’t do it Emma, OK?”

“OK.” What was I supposed to say?

The snow really started to come down. It wasn’t a storm but at the same time it was. The fire was down to coals and it hissed as the snow hit it. I took a piece of sheet metal and, after putting a pot of tightly packed snow over the coals, covered the “BBQ pit” to keep the snow from completely drowning things in case we needed it in the morning.

We took care of our personal needs while giving each other what privacy we could and then crawled into the tent and eventually we both went to sleep. I woke up briefly and tried to move away so I wouldn’t hit his leg and he threw his arm over me and dragged me back. I guess he got cold or thought I was going to go and forget to leave him a note or something.

The snow had stopped falling during the night and there were enough coals left to get a fire going again in the morning. The water was a little icy but I shook it up and Donovan ran it through the filter and then we poured it into a clean pot and heated it to boiling before splitting it between a couple of thermoses.

We agreed that we would pack up and move along. “I want us to move westerly but not so far that we run into places like Russellville or Bowling Green; I want to avoid the city centers where traveling could be rough. Before we hit Russellville we’ll turn north. There were some old abandoned little tourist traps off the beaten track up in there that Uncle Shem used to take me to. It’s a place to start. How’s the fuel this morning?”

“We’ve used up all the extra cans and we are down to just below the half mark on the main spare tank. But the half-track is full and we shouldn’t have to refuel until tomorrow.”

I knew that Donovan was nervous. I would watch him like he was going to bite a nail and then remember he had his gloves on. “Emma …”

“Yeah?”

“If anything happens to me …”

“Nothing is going to happen to you.”

“Don’t be hard headed. We don’t know how long these super cold weather patterns are going to last. It could be months, years, or even a lifetime or three. If … if something does happen to me and you run across other people, you need to try and make it work. You won’t … you won’t be able to make it in this world on your own.”

“Well thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Emma, I’m trying to be practical here. You’re not a big woman. Just living in this cold burns up a lot of energy. Working in this cold is … I can see it in your face girl. You’re losing weight, getting pale, you’re dark under the eyes and at night … I can feel the weight you are losing Emma.”

“That … is none of your business Donovan. And you are making a mountain out of a mole hill. Sure, I’ve lost a little weight but so have you. We’re eating more and still not having to get into our main food supply yet. We’ve got plenty of food. We’ll find a place to hole up for the winter even if it isn’t the perfect place. Then went the worst of the weather is over, if we want to we can go looking some more. But I have a good feeling … a real good feeling … the place we find will be all we need it to be. I’ve prayed …,” I stopped, thinking I’d put my foot in it.

Donovan scraped his face with his hand and rubbed his eyes. “About that. Look, I was … out of line … about … that stuff and you. I have my reasons but it’s … look, organized religion … aw @#$%.”

“Donovan, I’m not asking you to cut me any slack. To be honest I’m embarrassed that you were so surprised when …”

“Don’t be. I … I didn’t really mean it like it came out. God this place … I’d put all that crap behind me.”

“Uh … is this one of those blaming me for something I’m not responsible for things?”

He looked at me and I got a small laugh. “Yeah. Pretty much. Come here, the half-track has to finish warming up and maybe telling you will … I don’t know, something. I’m tired of tripping over it every time I turn around.”

Not having a clue what he was talking about but willing to listen if it helped, I sat and waited for him to start.

“Aunt Rachel was my Mom’s sister and they were as different as night and day even though they shared the same parents. I never knew my grandparents but I was told that they were real strict; my grandfather was a Primitive Baptist lay preacher. They only had the two daughters and my mom ran away from home so much they finally threw her out when she caught pregnant with me. My dad wasn’t a bad guy, he married her, but neither one of them were what you could call mature or financially responsible. My mom took off right after I was born; she was home from the hospital only two days before taking off for good. I met her once, at Aunt Rachel’s funeral, and there was no connection. Aunt Rachel had been the closest thing to a mother I ever had. She’d been thrown out of the house too because she didn’t want to marry some guy her dad thought was just perfect for her. She and Uncle Shem were just friends but he married her to protect her. Grandad apparently blew a gasket when he found out his daughter married an excommunicated Mennonite that couldn’t even have grandkids for them to fight over instead of crawling on her hands and knees to beg for a second chance. He refused to have anything to do with them even though their farms adjoined. As for me, then never even acknowledged my existence.”

He stopped to take a swig of coffee and was looking at me like he expected me to laugh or something which only made me want to kick him instead of being sympathetic. But I just kept my mouth shut and waited for him to start again.

“Fast forward a few years. I was living with Aunt Rachel and Uncle Shem more than I wasn’t. Then Aunt Rachel got sick … and I got a little wild. Started running with a crowd of kids that … none of us made good choices very often. There was this girl, well, she said I got her pregnant and there was good reason for me to believe her. That time Uncle Shem did just about kick my tail and he wasn’t the violent type at all. I offered to marry her but her parents put the kibosh on it; they did make sure my life a misery for a while and took me to court; wanted to get me for statutory rape but the cops wouldn’t touch it. Uncle Shem backed me up and while they got child support I got the shared custody I demanded. They didn’t like that but the judge told them he wouldn’t give them one without the other and at the first sign that they were interfering with my parental rights he would charge them and reduce the amount I had to pay every month.”

“You … you have a child? Was … I mean … your wife … ex-wife … I heard there weren’t any kids.”

“I’m getting to it. Just let me tell it in order Emma, this is hard enough as it is.” So I shut my mouth again and heard the rest of it.

“I loved that little boy and I was determined that I was going to do better by him than my Dad had done by me. My grades went up even though I was working like a dog to keep up with what I owed. I was gonna make something of myself see. I graduated and started community college. I followed all the rules her parents set. They were real church-y kind of people and demanded that I come to church with them and take these life enrichment classes and eventually I even started liking it. The only thing I couldn’t stand was that in public they acted like everything was going just fine and dandy but in private they never let me forget what an embarrassment the whole situation was. The thing is they did it in such a way that I was the one that felt bad for embarrassing them. I just didn’t see how twisted that was until later.”

He swiped his mouth like it had a bad taste in it. “The baby’s mother started going around with a guy we had known in highschool and then they got married real quick. It shocked everyone but her parents adored the baby girl that she turned out to be pregnant with. Then that baby got sick and needed some kind of treatment that required a donor. They tested Bobby … that was … his name, the little boy. It came out that … Bobby wasn’t mine. He was actually the son of the guy she’d run off and married.”

“What?! That’s … that’s …”

“A hillbilly soap opera. I know. I didn’t know what to do. I was still little more than a kid myself but Bobby … I’d helped raise him, didn’t blame him for what his mother had done. I loved the kid. But her parents, the whole church, wanted to ‘fix things and make them right.’ Everyone thought I was being selfish to hang onto the boy rather than let his “real daddy” raise him. Before I knew it we were in court again and I was on the losing end this time. Then Uncle Shem died and … they took Bobby from me. The little kid was crying and calling me Daddy and that’s the last time I was allowed to see him. They got a court order that prevented me from being anywhere near the kid and I nearly went to jail once over it because I went to the hospital when they were doing the transplant. That’s when the judge took me into his chambers and gave me the best advice he felt he could. I wasn’t ever going to be Bobby’s father, it was never going to go back to the way it had been, I was only hurting everyone by holding on to the kid, and since I didn’t have anything else holding me to the area the best thing would be for me to leave and go make a life for myself someplace else; let the kid acclimate to his biological father. It just about killed me but that’s what I did because I didn’t know what else to do. But I wasn’t through making a fool out of myself. Deidra … you know her name? Guess the gossip really did make the rounds. You know what happened there. She was another one that claimed to be religious. That was her excuse for leaving me for John … she had to ‘fix things and make them right.’ She was ‘in love’ with John and he with her and she thought it was only right to ‘set me free’ so we could all find happiness. Only that time there wasn’t any way I could retreat and lick my wounds; we were stuck in the freaking bunker with the world ending around us. I threw what I could into my job and avoided those @#$% socials as often as they would let me.”

“Well, at least you could avoid them. Attendance was mandatory for us and I felt like I was on the auction block every time someone felt forced to ask me to dance. They took turns you know, so that no one would get stuck with me too often. Everyone knew that I was bad mojo since I was still on Level 1’s hit list. Some even acted like they were doing me a favor by taking the risk and expected … appreciation … in return.”

“Hey … I didn’t know … why the heck didn’t you ever say anything?!”

“Does it matter now? But basically I guess like you, I just wanted to be left some pride. What those people did to you was wrong. And I’m really sorry about the little boy. I … that couldn’t have done anything but hurt. You didn’t have to tell me. I still don’t know why you did.”

“Because … I’m finding out that … look, I just wanted you to know that it’s not personal and that I’ll try and … not be so … so … critical. I’ll try and stop blaming you for what someone else did. OK?”

“Sure. And … yeah, I guess it helps to know why you feel the way you do. But Donovan … they didn’t do what they did because of religion … they did it because they were self-centered, excuse-making jerks.”

His face was momentarily surprised and then I got a real smile for a brief moment before he turned thoughtful again, “One thing Emma.”

“What?”

“Don’t hold me accountable for what that guy … that Moshe … did either. I may mess up from time to time but I won’t ever sell you out.”

Now it was my turn to be surprised but I held out my mitten covered hand and said, “Deal.”

It was a fairly quick getaway after we packed up the emotional baggage and stowed it and the remainder of the day was uneventful. We continued west to this little town called Elkton and now we are heading north and eventually we are supposed to turn northwest.

The sun is going down and that means it is going to get cold so I’d better get inside. We are camped by a concrete grain silo. Needless to say that is an empty concrete grain silo since most of it is laying on the ground like a big Tinker Toy. Donovan should be done with his personal hygiene. Keeping the BO at bay has been a challenge for both of us. About the only thing that gets clean these days are our teeth, pits, and feet. Lordy what I wouldn’t give for a hot shower … or even more for a long soak in a hot bubble bath. I haven’t been able to soak like that … my gosh, it’s been since before The Impact. How depressing.

Chapter Ten

2010-02-25T16:23:00.001-08:00

Chapter 10

Things have run from boring to miserable and back to boring back to … whatever you want to call it. How’s this different from my life in Level 5?

We woke in Bumpus Mills, TN to find ourselves blocked into our hidey hole. The hole we had driven through into the “cave” of debris wasn’t small, it had given plenty of clearance to the half-track on all sides, but snow drifts had piled one over the top of another to completely close our exit off. And the wall it created was as hard as concrete.

Donovan had a few choice words to say and I don’t hold it against him. I was thinking versions of them but I was just too cold to get as angry as he was.

“Emma?”

It felt like I was moving in slow motion. I was curling over on myself and holding my middle trying to get control of what I was feeling.

“Emma! Look at me. Come on; let’s get back in the cab. We’ll figure this out, don’t be so scared.”

My teeth had started to clack together so hard I could barely make myself understood, “Nnnnot … sssscared … Cccccoooolllllddddddd.” I hated the whimpering sounds that came out of my mouth after that.

I don’t know how Donovan managed it but he put me in the cab and then got in by himself. I was shaking so bad I couldn’t even seem to focus my eyes. I couldn’t stop and it was freaking me out.

“Don’t fight the shaking; it’s you body trying to warm up. Scoot over here … stop it, you’re not going to hurt me … coffee’s almost warm. I’m going to double load it with cream and sugar and - don’t give me that face - you’re gonna drink it.”

He was forced to use a coffee stirrer to get the first little bit into me; I seemed to have lost command of my body. After that I must have slept a little bit because I came to in Donovan’s lap with my weight on his good leg and his good arm holding me close. We were covered head to toe in a cocoon of blankets and sleeping bags.

“Wha …?”

“Easy. Take a swallow and then I want you to eat this.”

“This” turned out to be a chunk off of one of those nasty survival ration bars we found in the bus. It tasted a bit like a stale and crumbly short bread cookie. I’m not real fond of short bread cookies even when they aren’t stale and crumbly.

“Gag. That’s nasty. What happened? My head is pounding.”

“We need to get more fat on you. Your body is having a hard time with the cold. It’s going into starvation mode and starting to break down muscle instead of the little bit of body fat you can lay claim to. You too @#$% scrawny.”

“Kiss my left big toe. I’m eating the same as you for pity sake,” I groaned. “Four thousand plus calories a day. Why aren’t you reacting this way?”

“Two reasons. I’ve been trained to work and live in extreme conditions and my body is used to the routine. I’ve also got more reserves than you … nor have I been carrying the load of work you have,” he said in a way that made him sound angry. “Eventually if this continues I’ll have the same problems. You just had them first. Here, eat another bite. And keep drinking. Your kidneys are likely taking a pounding too with all the extra protein and us getting borderline dehydrated.”

As I was choking down the nasty bit he shoved at me he said, “I would have turned the heater on but until we can be sure that we aren’t going to kill ourselves with the exhaust …”

“Sure. I understand. We don’t want to waste fuel either.”

He pulled me closer and said, “Fuel won’t do us any good if we freeze to death Emma. I would have if I thought we could get away with it.”

I was still groggy and my brain wasn’t firing on all pistons. It took me a while to fight through the fog of feeling warmer than I had in a couple of days. Finally a few hazy thoughts started stringing together coherently. Me. Donovan. His lap.

“Oh! Oh!!”

“What? Hold still Emma. This coffee might not be scalding but it ain’t cold either.” Then he started laughing, “Well at least I know you’re fully awake now. Stop wiggling or we will have trouble. Here, eat another bite.”

He shoved another piece of pseudo-cookie in my mouth when I opened it to object to my location.

“Emma, survival makes strange partnerships … and sometimes strange bedfellows,” he sighed. “You said you consider me a friend, a good enough friend that you wouldn’t let me die alone. Well, I am your friend and I’m not going to let your modesty get in the way of me helping you to survive. Just relax. We both need the rest and the warmth. It looks like we are going to be here a while.”

He laughed again when I grumbled about the fact that I doubt that he would have willingly crawled up in Charlie Braintree’s lap to get warm. My head was really banging and it went against the grain but between the very real fatigue I was feeling and the food he kept shoveling into me I got drowsy again and eventually went back to sleep. Hours later we both woke to this really weird noise. It was the wind whistling through the debris above our heads. We ate self-heats – how I managed to eat more I can’t imagine – and took bathroom breaks (a hideous experience in that cold) since we doubled our fluid intake. While I was straightening my clothes I heard the sound of metal ripping somewhere above my head and then it was like being in a wind tunnel. I was knocked to the ground and landed hard.

“Emma! Emma!!”

I crawled toward the direction his voice had come from and it was really dark. I couldn’t hear anything anymore over the freight train sound the wind was making. I found the bumper, then the tire. The wind fought my every inch forward. I could literally feel myself sliding away every time I tried to let go long enough to grab for the door. The blowing snow felt like it was shredding my exposed skin. Then a light flashed briefly in my eyes.

Something grabbed my hair and held me so I could pull myself under the open door. I held onto the running board trying to get some purchase to climb up. I felt Donovan grab me under the arm and pull me up. I climbed over him and into the cab with him right after me. He’d used his crutch to keep the door open; he barely had time to pull his foot all the way in before the crutch snapped and the door slammed shut.

We were both breathing hard; he was pulling me over again into his lap and putting our cocoon back in place. I was gasping as I asked, “Shouldn’t I start the motor in case we need to make a break for it?”

“And go where? It’s as dark as the inside of a whale’s belly out there. It’s night and we can’t see which way to go or what else is being blown around. We’re somewhat protected here. If this goes … Emma all we can do at this point is wait this out and I want to do it warm.”

I was kind of stuck. I wanted to be warm too and my high ideals weren’t helping me out with that. On the other hand I worried that Donovan’s recent low opinion of me would develop into something permanent if I just went along without a fight. If I’d had a third hand I could have said it didn’t feel wrong to warm up with Donovan but it did feel dangerous.

“Emma I can hear the wheels spinning and smell the smoke. Stop thinking it to death. We’re just sharing body heat. Don’t make it into some kind of big drama.” So I climbed into his lap and we both finally warmed back up and got some sleep despite the hurricane-like snowstorm that was swirling around us.

The next morning I awoke to a rude poke in the ribs and, “Emma. Hey girl, wake up.”

Talk about shock. The storm was gone and as black night turned to gray and gloomy day we could see so was our shelter. Or at least most of it was gone; there was still a short “wall” that kept the wind and snow from burying the half-track. I got out and looked things over. Thank goodness I’m extra cautious about stuff though on occasion it has been called something ruder. The stuff in the half-track’s trailer bed was double tarped and double netted; tarp over the supplies first, then net, then tarp, and finally the outer net. A few of the “squares” of the outer net had frayed apart and the outer tarp was torn all to pieces but the inner net and tarp held fast with little damage.

Without a crutch and after all of the hullabaloo the day before Donovan was having a really bad time of it. I didn’t stop him from trying but I kept an eye on him just like he would have done if our places were switched. Donovan finally just shook his head and told me to mind my p’s and q’s. I ignored him while he went around a corner of the wall but when he yelled “@#$%,” at the top of his voice I grabbed the pick ax I had been using to dig my own hole and ran his direction.

There were cars, at least a dozen, buried in the debris pile. We drove right passed them in the night. Inside the cars … they were occupied, but not with the living. The cars all had chains on their tires so they were more than likely survivors that had been moving to try and find someplace warmer or at least safer. What had upset Donovan was a car with two car seats in the back. The people had been gone for … a long time. They were all in their seat belts so I’m thinking maybe they were caught in a snow storm and just passed away from hypothermia. They didn’t appear to have died violently. I don’t know that for sure but for the kids’ sake I hope they just went to sleep. And frankly I don't care if it makes sense or not, that's where I'm leaving it.

Donovan had left while I was looking at the gruesome spectacle and was leaning against the half-track when I walked back and pulled up the tarp to get to the tool box. I grabbed a large, flat-head screwdriver and a sledge hammer. I started walking back around to the cars when Donovan acted the snot and said, “Don’t seem like the right tools to use to give them a Christian burial.”

I turned around and looked him right in the eye. “No. Where ever they were going they are already there and the bodies are nothing but husks. Burials are for the living, not the dead and the cars are as good as tombs at this point. I’m going to pop the trunks and see if there is anything useable.”

“Why you heartless little huzzy,” but I ignored him and kept going. It’s not that I didn’t feel bad but I knew without a doubt the people didn’t need the stuff anymore and wouldn’t care one way or the other. I really do believe that they are already at their ultimate destination so to speak. I’m not heartless; I’m just not all ancient Egyptian about stuff and just couldn’t shake the feeling that I was supposed to do what I was doing. It hurt more for Donovan to be nasty again than any grief I was feeling for the poor people that died that way.

I stepped up to the first vehicle and stuck the screwdriver into the key slot and then tapped it in with the hammer. Then I gave it a good whack to drive it in, turned it the screwdriver’s handle and broke the lock barrel out which let me pop the trunk lid.

I heard crunching footsteps behind me. “Do I want to know where you learned to do that?” Donovan asked sounding tired.

“Probably not but I’ll tell you anyway. A … a friend named Moshe thought it was funny to teach his little sister and her best friend how to do it as part of some highschool science project he was working on. My Dad had a fit when he found out.”

“Highschool science project? Sounds like one heck of a highschool,” he said sardonically.

“Yeah, we had some whacked out teachers in the IB program. If I remember correctly it was Mr. Emerson’s physics class. Sarah and I had him too and when we had him the theme was roller coasters that year instead of automobiles. We took a fieldtrip to Busch Gardens and got to talk to some of the head engineers about Kumba, SheiKra, and Gwazi.” I looked over and saw Donovan’s face and said, “Sorry. TMI.”

The first trunk that I opened was empty and so was the second one. The third trunk was crushed but the fourth one had stuff in it. It was mostly cans that had bulged due to freezing but there was some dry stuff in there too; raisins, granola bars, little packages of Kool Aide, crackers. I found some diaper wipes (frozen stiff) and some feminine hygiene stuff in one of the trunks along with some type of energy booster pills for athletes and a woman’s gym bag with some work out gear in it. In the last one I was able to get to there was a couple boxes of kids’ cereal, some oatmeal, and a couple of giant canisters of powdered drink mixes like Tang and strawberry milk. What I didn’t see confused me.

“What are you looking at? Finally getting queasy pawing through dead people’s stuff?”

“Hey buddy boy, I may not be a trained security dude but even I can see some weird gaps here. There aren’t any staples like sugar, flour, beans, or rice. Heck, I don’t even see Ramen Noodles or pasta. I don’t see any pots and pans either or even camping gear, not even a bottle of water.”

Donovan looked at me. “Maybe you won’t be half useless after all.”

I decided to ignore him if he was going to act like that and looked again at what I was seeing and what I wasn’t. I mumbled to myself, “I wonder if the tanks are dry.”

Donovan was looking at every car but the one with the car seats. “Tanks are empty. All the caps are off or missing so someone checked before we did; it’s impossible to say when. The missing pieces could have been taken then, but why leave the food?”

Another question with no answer so after standing there for a moment of silence to put our memories of this place to rest we turned and headed back. The engine was ready to go by the time the little we had salvaged was stowed away and I had replaced the destroyed tarp with another one. As I went to climb into the cab Donovan put his hand on my shoulder. “About … about what I said … I …”

“Forget about it. Living like this is sick. Looks like I might just be sicker than you is all.”

No way was I going to get into another discussion of death with him so we got in and continued as northerly as the landscape would let us. We’d been driving along silently when he said, “So, were you born under a cabbage leaf or hatched?”

I had absolutely no idea what he meant so I turned my head and just looked at him. “Look, you said that I never asked about where you came from. So … I’m asking.”

“I was born in San Antonio, Texas but I don’t remember it. Before I was old enough to remember any different my Dad was stationed at MacDill and we stayed in Tampa while he did remote TDYs. He was home from a three month TDY out near Sacramento when a drunk …” I stretched my neck and skipped the details. “I was sixteen, got my emancipation thanks to the help of my best friend’s family and here I am.”

He shook his head. “Short and to the point.”

“It answered your question.”

He growled, “I swear you are contrary. Every other woman I’ve ever met would have used the excuse to give the novel of her life story. You … you on the other hand don’t even give out enough for an obituary.”

“What do you want to know? It’s no big deal.”

I expected him to ask a stupid question about my childhood or something but instead he asked, “OK, so how did you wind up in Level 5?”

That I hadn’t expected and it took me a while to put my head together and get a distance from the sudden burst of anger I surprised myself with. “Probably like some of the other women. I had a good friend. He lied to me. I fell for it.”

Donovan cleared his throat. “Are you trying to make me angry?”

“Look, I just … oh brother. Remember the guy I said helped me learn to break into trunks?”

He grunted what passed for a yes in his cave man vocabulary.

“My best friend was Sarah Epstein. Her parents helped me get my emancipation but they still asked me to live with them. They were … are … were good people.”

“Which is it? Were or are?”

“I don’t know. I’ll get to that. Anyway, Moshe is Sarah’s older brother. We were … close; more than friends but less than romantic. I got sick and missed going on a … a trip with Sarah and was in my dorm room recuperating over spring break. Moshe went to MIT and worked with a Dr. Rushton that had something to do with the bunker program. Moshe had gotten his family in … but … geez, is this really important?”

“If it is important enough for this to be the first time I’ve seen you uncomfortable about talking about anything then yeah … yeah I think it is important.”

“No psychobabble Donovan or you’re walking.” He grunted again and I continued. “It all happened so fast. Moshe shows up, gives good face and says all the right things just the right way. I fall for it hook, line, and sinker; no arguments, no questions, just because he asked me to and because … they were supposed to be a day behind me. Looking back I was an idiot and don’t have any excuse for it. I never would have known anything about Moshe’s secret life and would have died right along with billions of other people during the tsunamis but I guess I was the only warm female body that Moshe could come up with on such short notice for the Level 5 candidate requirement. I drew the sucker’s card and here I am.”

Donovan was blessedly quiet on the subject for a while and a good thing too because it let me concentrate on the road … only suddenly the road wasn’t there anymore, it was all air and if not for the tracks I don’t know if we would have gotten back on terra firma.

“You OK?” he asked.

“Oh yeah, don’t mind me. I just shake like this when I’m having a bloody good time. Next rest stop however I’m going to need a little privacy to deal with some personal issues.”

“That’s my Emma, heart of gold and tongue of fire. Hand me the binoculars.”

While I put my golden heart back in my chest, Macho Man took a look at the terrain. “Head due west and then when we get to a good place we’ll turn north again.”

“What’s with the weirdness? I looked at the map and I don’t remember it saying we were approaching the Here-Be-Monsters edge of the world place.”

My turn of phrase didn’t even phase Donovan. “Not the edge of the world, but looks like something that might have been caused by the New Madrid fault. I’m pretty sure we are over into Kentucky now, near where the Land Between the Lakes should be. Turning west we should run us into Ft. Campbell which ought to be interesting.”

Or not. We saw a few destroyed buildings and other debris but nothing that would indicate that the base was worth stopping at, assuming that’s where we actually were. “Ft. Campbell, MacDill, and a couple of the other biggies were put on lock down two days before the news was leaked about The Beast. Everyone was told it was maneuvers or reaction to a verifiable threat. It took less time than you would think to empty the base of everything important and they got the personnel off the same day The Beast was acknowledged. The bases were overrun after that. Anything worth taking is long gone.”

I said, “I wonder where the stuff stopped.”

“What stuff?”

“The buildings, cars, trees … the stuff that got blown away by the blasts of the different impacts. Has it all gotten compacted under the snow or is it still rolling around like some weird tumble weed? Take that storm for instance. …”

Donovan curled his lip indicating a decided lack of respect for my curiousity. “You take that storm. And you ask the strangest questions. Does it really matter where all of that stuff went?”

“It could. So far we’ve used road signs to tell us where we are. What if we are just totally off because signs have been blown miles … hundreds of miles from where they were originally hung. You said you are from around here, does anything look familiar?”

“Emma, don’t go borrowing trouble.”

That ended that conversation. We went westerly and drove into what was left of a small Stop-n-Shop. The roof had been sheered off and the inside had seen a fire but three of the walls were still standing and it afforded some protection from the wind. After an uneventful night we tried to turn north but debris was everywhere. I think I found where a lot of the flying junk wound up. There was also a lot of earth disturbances. We came to what Donovan said had to be I24 and were forced to back track a little south to get passed it. Eventually we headed west again and stopped for the night in a dot on the map called Pembroke.

Next morning Donovan was cranky. I don’t think he is sleeping very well. Who could sleep with someone piled up in your lap like he has me doing? I’m beginning to think he is just being a softy and trying to keep me warm at the expense of his own rest. If it isn’t easy for me to sleep sitting up it’s bound to be worse for him. After telling me to try and go north by following the road barely discernable under the snow drifts the monotonous rumbling of the half-track’s engine put him to sleep.

The day was as clear as it had ever been. There was no sun to be seen but the brightness from the unblemished and unending snow still got to me. Not even my Ray-bans kept my eyes from watering after a while. I thought I was seeing a mirage at first. I was tempted to wake Donovan up but was worried that he’d just think I was crazy on top of everything else.

I could tell it was big whatever it was. Looked like a broke off pencil. I kept driving and it just kept getting bigger. Then I saw the rest of it lying in the snow. It was like the twin of the Washington Monument in DC.

“What in the heck?” I asked not realizing I had said it out loud.

“Not heck ... home.”

Chapter Nine

2010-02-25T16:21:00.002-08:00

Chapter 9

It’s official. Donovan is demented. As much trouble as we are in he seems to be enjoying himself way too much.

First off, while I may refuse to let Mr. Insanity see how uncomfortable I am that doesn’t mean I’m going to lie about it here. I’m cold. No. Actually what I am is freaking cold. As in the kind of cold that should never have been allowed into Creation, if you'll pardon my opinion on the subject. I hate this.

Wisdom dictates that layering your clothing is warmer than a single thick garment. The space between the layers, though miniscule, acts like added insulation. Well let me tell you if I was any more layered I couldn’t bend my arms or legs to drive. It’s a good thing that Chandler had made sure to check out my personal gear before she left as I was so clueless. She even made me bring a pair of bigger boots so that I could wear multiple pairs of socks and still get my shoes on without cutting the circulation off to my toes.

My base layer is a polartec set of long johns. They are warm but the best thing is that they funnel moisture away from my body. The purpose of sweating is to create evaporation to cool your body; therefore evaporation is a bad thing when you are trying to stay warm. The polartec wicks the sweat away before it can evaporate.

The mid layer is for insulation. What I wear traps my body heat and keeps it close (therefore the need for the polytec base layer against my skin) but is half the bulk of the old fashioned stuff they used to have on the market. If I had to wear the old-fashioned stuff I really would look like a short, fat polar bear.

My outer layer is the waterproof layer. By this layer I have on my underclothes, three pairs of pants, three long sleeved shirt like pieces, a fleece pullover, a down vest looking thing and a waterproof and windproof winter coat with a well-insulated hood. My accessories include a hat with a brim and ear muffs … and after I nearly lost it twice last night it now has a nice chin strap to hold it on my head … sunglasses, a thin pair of inner gloves, and outer pair of wind and water proof gloves and a pair of fingerless mittens on a string around my neck in case I need them. Then comes my foot gear; a thin pair of inner socks and a couple pair of warm socks on top of that and my boots are waterproof muck boots that come to just below my knees and has these open treads that really grip on slick stuff.

All of that and I’m still freezing which is ridiculous. Wearing all of these clothes is taking some getting used to as well. I feel smothered. Shorts, tank tops and flip flops was practically the school uniform year round at USF except for maybe two weeks in the spring semester when you actually had to wear a coat (not necessarily long pants however). I wore jeans and a jacket or sweater in the bunker but even then I still felt free to wiggle around a bit in my clothes. Not with this stuff. It is really just irritating. But I guess I better get used to it because Mr. Gloom and Doom … when he deigns to talk to me in more than grunts and two word phrases … says that we are looking at years of this kind of weather.

Part of my shivers are nerves I’m sure. The morning of our departure Donovan made me run through everything one more time. I did it while I was taking down and stowing the tent and he was eating what passed for breakfast. I couldn’t eat and didn’t want to waste the food pretending. We hadn’t even left the bunk and we had our first argument.

“Donovan, the more you try and force me to eat the less I’m going to want to eat or even be able to.”

Donovan, out of what little patience he’d been trying to act like he had said, “In the cold our bodies are going to use the same kind of energy as if we were doing hard labor. As a matter of fact our body is doing hard labor, it’s burning energy to keep us …”

“I … know … already,” I huffed as I shoved the tent poles and stakes into their proper place. “The Major worked me over with a couple of those lectures before she left. I’ve got a bag of granola in my pocket for when my stomach settles.”

“Aaawwwww, is the wittle girl scared of the big bad snow?”

I’d had all of his attitude I could handle. “Yes. Yes I’m scared. I’ve never experienced anything like this. What’s making this worse is that I thought that I was going into this with a friend and I thought there was going to be some mutual support.”

“Well, teach you to think won’t it. If you’re waiting on me to thank you you’ll be waiting a long @#$% time,” he said in a nasty voice.

I was starting to feel nasty mean myself. “I don’t want your thanks you hard headed Neanderthal, I never did! I didn’t do it for that.”

“Oh, that’s right. You did it because your religion told you to.”

I just grabbed hold of my temper before I really blew up. “You know Donovan, I’m still the same person I was before you got hurt. I’ve had these same convictions about things all along. I haven’t changed one single bit. You can cuss me, push me, ignore me, insult me to your heart’s content but I will never regret what I did even if you are turning mean as an old warthog. I really don't know what your problem is but I was not going to drive away and know that you died alone and sick and that this God awful prison was your blasted mausoleum! Jerk!!”

I tied and cinched the tarp in place and then slammed my hat on my head and stomped over to crank the warehouse door open just enough to get the half-track out. I walked back a little calmer, opened the passenger door and waited for Donovan to hobble over. Regardless of whatever his brain damage was I wasn’t leaving him and he needed a boost to get in the cab.

Donovan had lost the false face he’d had in place in the middle of our bickering and was as close to being the man I remembered as he’d been in days. “You really hate this place.”

“Hate isn’t strong enough. I despise this place. But it was sort of home and relatively safe as you could get at the end of the world.”

He looked at me, really looked at me and said, “But you are glad to leave it behind.”

“Glad to leave the life I was leading behind. It was a gilded cage that was becoming too comfortable. I was starting to get complacent. The routine was … I was losing myself to everything. There was nowhere for me to go, no way for me to get ahead. The warehouse could practically run itself after a while and there was no challenge for me. I was stuck. All of the other women were … moving, growing, finding a new life even if we were stuck inside these walls. I was being punished for rocking the boat, I never had a chance and I came to understand that. And don’t deny it because we both know it’s true; that’s why I was never allowed on any of the work details outside of Level 5. But now, outside that door is freedom, but it comes with a kind of price and it is a high one and I’m scared. So don’t give me any crap. You haven’t had to walk in my boots, I doubt you are even capable of understanding what it felt like to have to live this dumbed down life I’ve been stuck in. Now come on, it’s getting cold and we’re burning fuel.”

I leaned over to give him a wider place to step up on than the running board. He got in without comment but it cost him. I could tell he was hurting.

“Your pills are in the …”

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s get on the road and I’ll pop one.”

It took twenty minutes for me to maneuver the half-track out, shut down the last circuit breaker and then manhandle the door closed. I heard the manual safety locks click and then I pulled the plug on the main power from inside the bunker. Then I went out the much smaller service entrance door and closed it behind me. In a culvert beside the door I pull the disconnect breaker for the service entrance. No one was getting back in the bunker now unless they had a matching disconnect switch. I got in the cab, threw the breaker behind the seat and shivered my way back to a semblance of warmth. When I could feel my hands I gripped the wheel and we were off.

Because of the weather conditions we aren’t going to be able to navigate celestially; everything is going to be compass and maps. Unfortunately we already know that the maps are going to be next to useless. One of the things that Donovan is doing as we go along is to re-map the areas we go through in case we ever have to backtrack.

There was no conversation for the first couple of hours. It had more to do with mutual tenseness than it did the argument. It took all of my concentration to learn the ins and outs of the half-track and to follow the landmarks that the salvage teams had left behind. I had a raging headache from the white gloom and started to shiver again. Donovan noticed and said, “Eat the granola Emma. We’ll share the thermos today but I think I have an idea for tomorrow. We are going to need the warmth more than I suspected. The salvage teams were out here in what passed for the summer months, we are just now heading into winter and we are already below zero.”

I was hungry and it was something to pass the time so I didn’t argue. Neither did he when I offered him the bag. The silence was filled by crunching.

That first day was nerve wracking and so was the next but today is when things really started getting hairy. The first night we stayed in a dilapidated autobody shop. I just drove right in one of the bays. You could tell where the salvage teams had used the place before. It had been mostly gutted but they’d built a mini-bunker that we crawled into and set up our sleeping quarters for the night after securing what was left of the bay door. It was so cold I couldn’t really sleep for very long at a time and the next morning I inhaled my breakfast allotment of caffeine. What I wouldn’t have given for a No-Doze.

The weather was so cold that even though we had self-heating meals, and those things get pretty hot, in the cold they don’t stay warm for long. Breakfast the second day was beef stew, a toaster pastry, an oatmeal cookie, lemonade (powdered mix plus filtered water in our canteen), crackers, raisins, and a squeeze packet of peanut butter. I ate it all and could have kept going. I’ve never been a huge eater and being that hungry was a novel experience but one that I have a feeling will be repeated on a regular basis from here on out. I saved the salt and pepper packets in a bag in the glove compartment as I didn’t need them. I nearly freaked when I looked at the packaging and saw that I had just eaten 1310 calories, 520 of them from fat. I choked on a swallow of coffee which when Donovan found out why started him to laughing until he bumped his leg. So glad I provided him with some amusement … not.

We flatten out all of our trash and save it for “kindling” in case we need it later. Then we were off again, leaving the little town of Indian Mound, TN behind us. We haven’t seen a single living thing though the salvage teams reported hearing dogs … or maybe it was wolves; they could never catch the sounds to record them. It was eerie and depressing. Last night we reached the edge of the area the salvagers had mapped. This time we drove down into an underground parking garage. I was so tired, even after eating nearly 4000 energy-filled calories for the day, and I knew that I had another rough night ahead of me. I got up from where I had been sitting moping to secure the half-track and found Donovan messing around under the hood.

“What are you doing?”

“If you are finished with your pouting you can come here and give me a hand. I had to rework my plan but I think I’ve got it figured now. When I lived out in Arizona a friend loaned me this book called Manifold Destiny; it’s about cooking food on your car engine. Well, the self-heats will work for that but we need water to run through the filter to drink. I took this metal ammo box and loaded it with snow and I mounted it … see there? Now … yeah, run that clip through there. It shouldn’t go anyplace even on a bad road. The engine will melt the snow and all we’ll have to do is run it through the filter instead of having to wait to have something decent to drink when we make camp. When I’ve got more mobility I’ll see if there is a way to run a hose through the firewall and into the glove compartment so that we don’t have to keep taking the ammo box out and putting it back in. We’ll just fill it up when we stop and we’ll have a fairly constant source of warm water.” I just stood there slack jawed. Now that is what I call creativity.

After securing our vehicle it was time to crawl into what passed for a bed. We both lay there almost too tired to sleep. I tried not to but I was shivering before I could get comfortable and let sleep take me.

“This is getting ridiculous kid.” Then he pulled my coverings off.

“What the?! Do you mind?!!”

“Yeah, actually I do but I’m tired of being cold too.” He was twisting and grimacing and then said, “Crawl in kid. It will be warmer this way.”

I was so tired and just wanted to get warm so I crawled in and found that we were laying a whole lot closer than we had before. “Relax kid, I’m not going to bite. I’m too tired.”

“I’m not a kid and you aren’t an old man so knock it off.”

“This isn’t the time to be reminding me …” he sighed. “It was a joke Emma. I’m serious, we’ll be warmer this way. I promise I won’t …”

“I said knock it off. I know you aren’t that kind of man. I’m just getting tired of you treating me like I’m a know nothing squirt, OK?”

I guess I’d surprised him somehow because he did stop and I felt him staring at the back of my head. Then he was snoring and I was warm and that is the only thing I really cared about at that moment so I went to sleep too.

The next day was a little embarrassing. We both woke up about the same time and jumped because we found out we’d gotten pretty doggone close during the night trying to stay warm. But you are only going to get so close when you are fully dressed including your coat. The only thing we weren’t wearing were our boots.

I flew out of the covers and headed to our designated latrine area to take care of things while he got out and limbered up, not an easy task for him right now. We need more padding beneath us but I’m not sure what to use for it.

This morning we left all the salvaging landmarks behind. It meant moving even slower which was pretty hard to do. We were heading northeast, and with pretty good reason. The bunker had been built near a granite quarry deep in rural in Tennessee. Donovan and I talked it over at length for a while.

Appropos of nothing Donovan asks, “You ever heard of the Kentucky Cave Wars?”

Not minding a distraction, or the fact that Donovan was finally talking to me in full sentences I said, “No. Were they important for Bunker Gamma?”

“Uh uh. But they might be important for where we are heading. Assuming we can get there and assuming … well, look. My aunt married a Mennonite.”

Wondering if this was why he was so sensitive about religion I asked, “You were Mennonite?”

“No. Neither was my aunt. The man she married left the sect when he was in his late teens. He still kept to a lot of the traditions but just not enough of them not to get excommunicated. Anyway, they settled on a farm in Kentucky and I was sent to live with them a few years at a time.”

My confusion must have showed on my face. “Girl, not everyone has happy childhoods. My mom left when I was a baby and Dad couldn’t always hold it together. Sometimes he’d just drop me off at my Aunt and Uncle’s for a while.”

When I didn’t say anything he said, “What? No comment? No ‘so that’s why you are the way you are’?”

“Uh, Donovan … it’s kinda none of my business. And knowing a possible reason still doesn’t mean I’m going to cut you any slack when you are being a pain in my backside. I don’t hold you responsible for the drunk that killed my parents so don’t hold me responsible for your less than stellar childhood.”

He barked out a laugh, “You’re … oh forget it. Let’s just say that there are reasons why I feel the way I do about you Bible thumpers but they don’t have anything to do with my Dad. And my Aunt and Uncle were good people. They kept me out of foster care and on the straight and narrow and Uncle Shem taught me a lot of practical skills that have come in handy over the years. One of the things he was a bear about was education and a big part of that was local history. We tramped over thousands of acres with him telling me stories like you wouldn’t believe or going to talk to some Old-Timer that would tell me more stories.”

“Did you have a lot of cousins?”

“No. Uncle Shem had measles when he was a teenager and couldn't have kids. Aunt Rachel said I was the answer to their prayers and was more than enough to … geez, that was a long time ago and not what I meant to talk about.”

“So don’t talk about it.”

“You really don’t care do you?”

I thought for a second, “It’s not that I don’t care Donovan, at least not the way you are making it sound. If you want to share then I’ll listen. I just don’t know where this is coming from or where it is going. You haven’t shown much interest in my past. You never asked me how I wound up tricked into Level 5. You never showed any interest in my personal data period. I just figured it was never part of the equation for you so I figured wondering about your personal data was a waste of time for me. You would either tell me or not. Either way we were already the people we were and friends of a sort.”

He looked at me and gave me a disbelieving look. “If that’s true then you have to be the only female that I’ve ever met with that attitude.”

“I thank you on behalf of my gender Mr. Neanderthal.”

“How did we get off on this topic?”

“Don’t ask me, you are the one that … “

“Fine. So you haven’t heard of the Kentucky Cave Wars.”

“No professor, I have not. Lecture on.”

That won me a look that could have peeled bark but he kept going. “Back in the early part of the 1900’s cave tourism was big business in places like Barren County, KY where Mammoth Cave is located. Farming was hard and the tourism money was relatively easy. Competing tourist traps played all sorts of dirty tricks to get unsuspecting marks to visit their cave rather than the other ones. But that’s not what is important.”

“So what is important ‘cause I’m getting confused with your roundaboutation.”

“Smart aleck. It’s the caves. The first area I want to investigate isn’t too far from where my Uncle’s farm used to be. Some of those caves are deep and long with average constant temperatures in the caves running between 48 and 60 degrees F depending on how long and how deep the cave is and whether it is a dry or wet cave.”

“I take it cave study was something your Uncle encouraged,” I muttered.

Donovan grinned, “Oh yeah, you could say that. His house was built over a small cave and he used the air from the cave to cool the house in the summer and warm the house in the winter.”

“The bunker life never bothered you then.”

“I didn’t say that. Living in a cave is a lot different than living over one. Aunt Rachel died of ovarian cancer when I was in highschool and Uncle Shem of a heart attack a couple of years later while I was working at a local mill, putting myself through school. The farm went into probate and nothing was left after that. I joined … never mind, I worked with a private security contractor but went back to the area to go spelunking once or twice a year. I know that area and I know there are caves that should still be usable for our purposes.”

“I hear a ‘but’ in there.”

“Like I said, if I know they are there then others will know they are there. You heard about those people that have Mammoth Cave pretty much locked down and living there. That’s a big group as things go. My guess is that well known places like Wind Cave, Cumberland Caverns, Ruby Falls, and all the commercial tourist locations have people trying to survive in them too. If that is true then the smaller ones may have the same thing going on in them, only we won’t know until we stumble on one because they don’t have a radio to say ‘here we are.’”

“Jolly. So do we get shot before or after we knock on the door?”

Kentucky is within our fuel circle that we drew on the map. Even better is that the area that Donovan wants to check out first is within the optimal cone we colored within the fuel circle. Every night he tries to figure our exact location on the map. The only reason we know tonight is because of the bus.

While it has been cold enough to freeze a polar bear’s tail we hadn’t run into any storms or snow yet. The bus was just off to the side of the road leaning really funny. It wasn't too bad but it stood out from everything around it; no, what made it bad was that we knew it was one of our buses. From Convoy 3 to be precise.

Donovan didn’t have any business out in the weather and hobbling in the snow but he was determined, especially after we saw the two graves off to the side. The ground was too frozen to dig graves, they had just piled stuff on top of the bodies. Donovan had me move stuff until we got down to the bodies; animals hadn’t even gotten to them, nor decay. It was almost like looking at someone who had simply fallen asleep in a bad place.

“Donovan, I recognize them. I think they worked for Charlie.”

“Yeah. They had clearance for three but mostly worked in the family area in four. You see any obvious COD?”

“Cause of death you mean? Not on the guy next to you but this one had something wrong with his … oh, ew.”

“What?”

“This guy must have bled out. His sleeve … and what was in it … aren’t … aren’t attached anymore.”

Donovan hobbled around to double check what I had reported and I started looking around the bus.

“Donovan!”

He turned at my call and saw me pointing at the ground where the bus looked like it was sunk into the snow. He came over and then had me help him to lean down and clear out some space around where the wheel should have been.

“OK, see how this sounds. The convoy is rolling along. Bus gets a flat for whatever reason. These guys get out to change it and everything is going SOP but then the jack snaps. Bus comes down on one or both of them and then … move that snow … yeah, when the jack snaps and the heavy bus comes down it bends the axle. Everyone is in shock but they have to keep moving. They bury their dead the best they can, split the personnel between the two remaining vehicles – and that’s a tight fit – and take what supplies they can leaving the rest behind.”

I looked around and said, “Blood on the ground is probably from the amputation. Maybe the other guy was crushed but not squished enough to bleed? Either way it makes about as much sense as we can make without a firsthand account.”

Suddenly I couldn’t remain clinical any longer. I walked off a few yards bent over and lost my lunch. I was dry heaving, trying to not throw up anymore than I already had when there is a napkin in my face. “Breathe in your nose and out through your mouth. It’ll help.”

After I pulled myself back together I straightened up and Donovan was standing right there. “You might see more of this, you might not. You OK with that?”

“What choice do I have? It is what it is. I won’t be sick again.”

“You can tell yourself that if it helps.”

“Donovan, I don’t need any grief right now. Just drop it.”

“I’m not giving you any. Emma, I puked my first three rough assignments. It happens. You eventually get used to it whether you want to or not. But puking right now isn’t a good thing because you are losing calories and fluids that your body is going to need. If you think you are going to puke, stay in the half-track. It’ll be better.” I never know how to take Donovan; he’s a snarling monster one minute and is kind and thoughtful the next.

I didn’t know what to say to him so I said nothing, just nodded my head, scuffed some snow over the already frozen vomit and went back to the bus to check out the supplies that had been left behind.

I brought it all out for Donovan to look over. “I don’t know who was going through these supplies but they need to assign it to someone new. This is a whole case of mixed calorie bars! And @#$%&! you sure don’t leave rope or tarps behind ever!”

We spent an hour picking over what got left behind and then finding places to stick it. Right after I helped a very cold and in pain Donovan climb back into the cab I walked behind the bus for a little privacy to take care of some girl stuff. Coming back I tripped over something and went face first into the snow. I was so irritated and Donovan’s grinning face behind the windshield didn’t help. I brought my fist down on the ground … and heard a dull metal clang. I brushed the snow away and it was a sign for Dover, TN.

I brushed the snow off of me before I got in the cab; it was so cold that we could stay dry so long as we didn’t bring in snow into the cab. I told him what I had found.

“Well we’ve got a problem then.”

“Why?”

“Because Dover is supposed to be on the other side of the Cumberland River. We came straight from Indian Mound and we haven’t crossed a river yet. That means that either we are all turned around, or the river has moved as a result of the New Madrid fault activity, or best case would be that the wind blew the sign onto this side of the river. Drive slow. With this amount of snow we could be on top of the river and not even know it until it is too late.”

“But if it is so cold that the river is frozen over hard shouldn’t we be OK?”

“Maybe, maybe not. The Cumberland has a pretty decent current. If it is frozen completely over that still could mean that the ice is thin in the deeper parts that have a heavy current.”

“Great. Lovely. Just tell me if death is imminent so I can get my affairs in order.”

“You have affairs?” I just gave him a look to express my opinion of his humor as I cranked the engine to life.

From that location we headed due north, him hoping and me praying that we wouldn’t wind up in the water. It was well after dark before we found this place to hole up in for what remained of the night. We don’t even know what this was originally supposed to be. It’s mostly just a big pile of debris that has been pushed up tight against an outcrop of dirt and rock. We couldn’t even set the tent up so we are sleeping here in the half-track. The temperature is really dropping and the wind has picked up. Donovan thinks we are going to wake to a storm which may mean that we are going to be stuck here for a while. Not the best place for this to happen.

Donovan has the irritated look on his face again so I’m going to put this notebook away and then recite a few quick verses in my head. No sense in setting Mr. Cranky off; and besides, it won’t hurt to practice my recall skills for one night.

Chapter Eight

2010-02-25T16:21:00.001-08:00

Chapter 8

The Plan. It wasn’t all that complicated because the options weren’t all that varied. We had the half-track, a limited supply of fuel and a limited supply of food. The goal was to travel until we reached some place we could call home and try and salvage until could adapt our way of life to the new weather patterns.

With a rather blank face Donovan looked at me and asked, “That’s the plan?”

“That’s the plan,” I told him.

“You’re kidding me.”

“No. Why?”

That’s when I noticed the tick in his left eye. “Why? Why?! That’s …”

I’d had months of practice heading one of his blow ups off. “If you’ve got a better one I’d like to hear it. The Major left all of the fuel she could, and a little more besides, while still leaving them a cushion to reach their assigned bunker. No matter which way you cut it we don’t have enough to reach even the nearest bunker. If it isn’t the fuel, it’s our food supply; we have enough for nine months if we are careful and ration it out … and if we find a way to cook it. We’ll use all of the self-heats before we get some place. We …”

“All right … all right, that’s enough. I get it. Have you got a direction picked out?”

“As I see it we’ve got some things that limit our choices. I was going to lay it out and then get your input since you were in on the original planning.”

He rolled his eyes and asked, “Were you now?”

I ignored his sarcasm and just continued, “Yes I was. Even if we had the fuel we know that there was an impact in the Gulf so the far south is probably out. The big Atlantic impact has taken out the entire East Coast. All of the seismic activity makes the far west so not the direction I want to go either.”

I’d finally tickled Donovan’s natural born adventurer gene and he came on board with The Plan. “Recent data suggests the New Madrid fault let go. Anything around the Mississippi River is going to be suspect. Something you may not know … I don’t know how much Chandler was allowed to tell you but I wasn’t informed until about a month ago … areas around nuclear plants, missile silos, ammo dumps aren’t too healthy to be around either.”

“I heard the rumors but no one ever confirmed them. How many of our convoys have to travel through areas like that?” I asked since I hadn’t been privy to any of the routes as each was considered “top secret.”

“Only the first convoy was sure to have to go through rather than around one of those areas. They also were going to run into the Yellowstone basin.”

“But … why, what … are they crazy?! The seismic activity? Didn’t it set Yellowstone off?”

“Doesn’t look like it. Not that I understood all of the scientific gobbledygook but they said when the West Coast went it somehow drained the tension off of Yellowstone, possibly even draining the magma chambers. No one is even sure if there is any geyser and hot spring activity right now.”

“But … Colonel Mackey, the others …”

“Let it go, they had other options and they made their choice.”

“Other …? OK, OK, whatever, I guess I can’t do anything about it now. But where does that leave us?”

“It depends. Where’s my gear?” I pointed to his packs. “In the top there is a plastic covered map in a bag with some other stuff.”

I opened his pack and then brought him what he’d asked for. We estimated the distance our fuel would take us. Using our location as an approximate center point we drew a circle. Then we began to block out areas that were undesirable for one reason or another.

There wasn’t much room to head south or southwest because of the fuel and impact that had happened two hundred miles away. Southeast wasn’t good either. That left a narrow cone encompassing northwest to northeast, but not really far in any of those directions. The stark reality tempted to overwhelm me. It tested my faith. But when faith is all that you have to hold onto your grasp it stronger than if you have a lot of stuff pulling you in other directions.

“Emma …” Donovan stopped, shook his head then turned away. I was almost afraid to leave him. He’d spoken of making a choice. I couldn’t take his weapons out of the tent without insulting him further than my laugh already had so I just sat and waited.

He finally turned and looked at me, “I want an inventory of the food.” I handed it to him. “I want one for the equip …” I handed that one before he could finish. “Dang brat,” he muttered … but loud enough so that he was sure that I heard. “Now I want out of this tent to see what kind of mess you’ve gotten us into.”

Even ignoring his crankiness his demand was easier said than accomplished. I was in good shape – hard work will do that – but I’m short and Donovan is not; he also outweighs me by quite a bit. We just managed it with the only injury a knot on the top of my head where he cracked his chin before I could catch one of his stumbling falls. Outside the tent I propped him up with a crutch. He barely managed a hobble but he was under his own steam.

He looked at the half-track and then at me. “You loaded this by yourself?”

“Yeah.”

He snorted and then said rather grudgingly, “Wouldn’t think a squirt like you could have pulled it off. Looks good. The cab should already be sealed since this is one of the salvage vehicles. Is this one of the ones that the heaters was souped up in?”

“That’s what Chandler said. I figure we could add some cushion for you leg and … “

“Don’t.”

“What? What did I said now?!” I finally burst out getting frustrated.

He sighed again, a sound I was beginning to hate, and then scrubbed his hand across his face. “That the john over there?”

“Yeah, I’ll give you a hand and …”

This time he growled and then stomped … well, hobbled … off to take care of things. I’d been trying to give him as much privacy as I could while he’s been recuperating but sometimes that was impossible. I can’t believe they call women the more sensitive gender. He can act more irritable and contrary that I do at my most hormonal and that’s saying something.

I determinedly ignored him, even when I heard him slowing stumping back. Then he slowed. “Emma …”

I turned, took in his gray face, and just managed to run and catch him before he did a full body slam face plant. I’m not completely heartless, I kept my mouth shut until we got him back in the tent and down on the cot. His breath slowed down and the color came back in his face before he said another word.

“You see this? You see? I’m going to be nothing but a burden. But I’ll be @#$%&! before I let you go wondering off on your own. We’ve got forty-eight hours and then we are heading out, that’s it, no more than that. Understand me? And I’m going to make your life a misery to pay you back for this.” And then he went to sleep.

Quite a way to announce his choice but if that is what it took for him to find his fight then so be it. I can put up with his “making me miserable.” Actually I think he should have said make me crazy because that is what he has done for a fact. I’ve been ordered this way and that so much that I was beginning to question which way was up. But we are all packed and as prepared as we can be. Actually we were packed yesterday but we both needed another day to prepare for whatever lies ahead of us mentally. I dug out this spiral notebook from the supplies and I’ve been writing all day. When I finally put this away all I’ll have left to do is read my Bible. It can’t be coincidence that I’m in Isaiah 41; if ever there was a day when I read the words “Fear not for I am with you” this would be it.

Donovan hasn’t made any more nasty comments about me reading my Bible. I usually go off to do it so it doesn’t upset him. It does for some reason though he hasn’t explained why. When we’re completely square again I intend on asking him, but not now; something tells me this isn’t the time.

First thing after waking I’ll pack the tent and we’ll be on our way. I hope it isn’t hypocritical of me to be scared. I wish I could ask Donovan if he is scared but our friendship never went that direction.

Chapter Seven

2010-02-25T16:20:00.000-08:00

Chapter 7

There was quite a shouting match but they couldn’t shake my resolve. This felt right to the same depth that the Level 5 program had felt wrong. It was right there with my core beliefs. In the Bible it talks of being a good slave; of making no excuses based on situational ethics and of continuing to try to be a better person regardless of where you find yourself. I think I learned to accept that God put you in situations to learn. I explored the boundaries of what it meant to be a slave. I may have been a slave in my situation but I wasn't a slave to my situation; physically I was bound but my spirit was free.

But now I was free in almost every sense and with that freedom came additional responsibilities. My friend, a man who had risked a great deal to help me secure that freedom, was in a sense a slave. He was a slave to the injuries he sustained, to the reality of being human. I had faith that he just needed time, time to heal and be free. But I also knew Donovan well enough to be certain, like me, he wasn’t willing to put the lives of others at risk to get that time.

The Major asked, “Chapman, do you have a death wish?!”

Others added their objections. It took too long to convince them. I was losing my patience. “Look, it’s my life and my choice. I’m of sound mind and body. I’m not asking you to understand why, I’m just telling you to accept it. My choice has already been made.”

I suppose they could have knocked me out and loaded me into one of the vehicles but they didn’t. I hope it was a form of respect. Major Harper pulled me aside and asked, “Chapman are you and Donovan romantically attached?”

I was stunned and gave her a very big negative to that but at least it prepared me because Chandler and Marshall asked me the same thing and that time I had to laugh. “I don’t even know why anyone would think that much less you two. The best I can say is that Donovan is a friend … a buddy … but it’s not friendship that drove my decision.”

“Then what? You may tell the others that they don’t need to understand but don’t tell us that.”

Trying to find the words I fell back on the tried and true, “Because it’s right.”

In the end they had no more choice than I did if they were going to do what was right. The Major ordered some rearranging of supplies. She left the portion of the food originally assigned for Donovan and I, as well as a few other things. Chandler pulled me aside and showed me a two seater half-track. It wasn’t in the greatest shape, it had been one of the original vehicles used by the salvagers, but it moved and it had a few modifications like a heavy duty wench and a trailer bed rather than a personnel hauler. Laine showed me how to take care of Donovan’s wounds to avoid infection and how to watch for other potential problems.

Donovan’s supervisor showed me how to load and care for Donovan’s personal weapons and made sure I had a supply of ammunition, one of the few things that had remained in abundance within the bunker. “Pray that you don’t have to fire one of these but maintain them and be prepared as if you will.”

And then they were gone. They day was still, cold, and gray; we hadn’t seen the sun since Impact Day. Day was a kind of bright and night was black as a bottomless pit. I couldn’t watch them drive off towards the horizon unless I wanted to freeze. I’m from Florida and until the asteroid had hit I’d never been anywhere near snow. I really only experienced it when the convoys started to leave. As Convoy eight drove off that was the first time I had actually stepped outside in nearly two years and stood in the nasty stuff.

One of the last things the Major told me was, “Chapman, cold is the enemy. Hunger and thirst you can hold at bay for a while but cold will kill you real quick. Tattoo that on your forehead if you have to but never forget it.”

You didn’t have to tell me that; standing outside for just those few moments before manually closing the bunker doors was enough to generate an instinctive reaction to the danger. The enormity of my choice, despite feeling its rightness, added to my shivers as I returned to the tent that had been set up beside the half track.

Donovan was inside on a cot and the tent was only moderately warmer than the frosty warehouse, but at least it was warmer. I thawed out a little bit then climbed back out and started loading the half-track. First I made sure that the extra fuel tank and hose were just right. Then I started loading stuff around the tank as a kind of insulation. I lined the inside of the half-track’s cab with blankets and sleeping bags as another layer of insulation.

When I wasn’t doing that I was sleeping or taking care of Donovan. The afternoon of the third day he regained consciousness long enough for me to explain things to him. He lost consciousness in the middle of several comments on my sanity. It didn’t have quite the impact he meant it to have since it ended on a yawn and then a snore. Four days after that he was finally able to stay awake for more than a few minutes at a time, primarily because he stopped letting anger eat up his energy.

“Emma, why? Why would you do this insane thing?! It would have been so much easier if you had simply let the Major do what had to be done.”

“Because what’s easy isn’t always what's right.”

“What’s right?! How right is it for me to take you down with me? You want me to live what little bit of my life I have left dealing with that kind of guilt?”

“Get it through you thick skull man, you aren’t taking me anywhere. I made this choice and I made it because it was, it is, right.”

“You idiot girl; you have your whole life ahead of you. Now you’re throwing it away. You’re going to die.”

“How do you know that? How can you say that with absolute certainty? And stop calling me girl. You're what? Maybe ten years older than me?”

“Are you kidding?! Stop avoiding reality. Look at me! How am I supposed to protect you?”

I couldn’t help it, I laughed; but when I saw the look on his face I felt bad. “Donovan … Donovan … come on, I’m sorry, I really am. I’m not laughing at you I’m just …” I stopped at a loss for words.

“Just what?”

“Donovan, I never asked or expected you to protect me when I made my choice.”

Donovan’s answer was to chuckle cynically as ask, “So you think you’re going to protect me?”

“No. That never even entered my mind, not really.”

He looked at me and when he realized I was serious he shouted in an exasperated voice, “Then what?!”

“I believe that if you do your best to do what’s right things will turn out all right. That isn’t to say all candy colored rainbows and unicorn farts but … just right; the way things are supposed to turn out.”

“Karma? What goes around comes around? Is that the bag you’re into?”

“No.”

“Emma …” Then he saw my Bible sticking up out of my backpack. I was sure that I had put it away but there it was in plain sight. “Oh you’ve got to be kidding me. You can’t be. You’re a Bible thumper?! No way. I would have seen it before now.”

For the first time I became uncomfortable. It didn’t reflect on me all that well that it was such a surprise to Donovan that I am a Christian, still sometimes you just have to be public about your beliefs. “Where do you think my core beliefs, my absolutes, come from?”

He shut me out and went back to sleep, in that order and rather abruptly. I went off to do some heavy thinking.

Several hours later I brought him a mug of soup. I could have stayed away longer but that would have been cowardly and I’d already decided that maybe I had been a lot more cowardly than I had ever meant to be. He was awake but his face was pretty forbidding so I set the mug down and turned to leave the tent.

“So what’s the plan?”

“Huh?”

“Are you just going to sit back and let the angels save you?” he asked snidely.

I sighed and turned to leave again and he reached for me with his good arm, “Emma … stay. We need a real plan.”

“We’ve got one.”

He snorted. “If ‘we’ do, when were you going to filll me in on what it is?”

“When you felt up to it.”

It was his turn to sigh, “Feeling up to it is irrelevant. I need to know what the plan is. Then it is my turn to make a choice.”

Chapter Six

2010-02-25T16:19:00.000-08:00

Chapter 6

Eight other bunkers had been identified over the preceding year. Many of them had lost significantly more people than we had. One had a large surplus of female personnel. I overheard Braintree and Donovan commenting at one point, “They are so desperate for our single men to show up it sounds like every woman over there is on the verge of her biological clock exploding.” Pigs. Unfortunately I had become fond of those particular two pigs. Even though I rarely left Level 5 they kept me in touch with what was going on, often telling me things that never came up in the committee meetings which helped me understand some of the undercurrents I often felt. It didn’t stop me from wanting to brain them on occasion however and that was one of them.

Another bunker had lost their entire contingent of medical staff in an explosion when an oxygen tank ignited. Each bunker had their own set of stories and were eager for the possibility of filling the gaps in their personnel and supplies so they tallied up their needs and capacities. Arrangements were made to divide up the personnel and supplies of Bunker Gamma.

The very idea of the division caused a very emotional reaction in the population. Our bunker was like a small town and had developed a small town mentality. Change was going to be difficult and fears was rampant. Families were kept together but the departments, who had become like families, were ripped apart. However it was the only choice left if we were to maximize not only our personnel’s’ survival rate but survival of all the bunkers as a larger survival group.

Repairs on the bunker were no longer attempted; we rerouted all time and resources into what had to be done. What should have taken months was condensed into weeks. We shut down and mothballed the bunker, our home of nearly 18 months. We also spent many sleepless nights outfitting transportation vehicles to cross the inhospitable landscape. Routes had to be evaluated and the remaining supplies equitably divided. Salvage items finally went into personal luggage. It should have taken months to accomplish but we didn’t have it; the lowest levels of the bunker were already flooded.

The first convoy to head out included a lot of the invisible Level 1’s. Their destination was the furthest bunker which rumor had located in the Rockies. It was all very hush-hush; the world may have changed but the basic nature of the politician apparently never does.

The next three convoys all left the same day, all heading different directions, the fifth convoy and the largest left the next day and a good thing too as we lost one of the biggest generators and we were forced to shut down most of the power to all the levels. It’s amazing how much heat 770 some odd bodies generate. It was getting cold in the bunker and we couldn’t even afford to run an extra electric blanket at that point.

The sixth and seventh convoys advanced their departure dates and after they left it was like living in a mausoleum. As an irony, the remaining personnel moved into Level 5 as the rest of the bunker was closed down and for the first time in almost two years I was free to walk where ever I pleased. Chandler … now Capt. Chandler … gave me the full tour; it wasn’t near as impressive as I had built it up to be in my imagination.

We were laughing over the whole ridiculousness of the situation as we investigated the men’s bathroom in Level 1 quarters. Suddenly her radio crackled, “Chandler! I need you up in the labs now! Greeley’s fli … BANG! BANG! BANG!!!” The radio went silent and we were already running, forced to use the stairs as the elevators had no power.

It was restrained chaos when we got there with nearly everyone left crowding the space. Donovan was laid out and being worked on by the two medics we had remaining, one of them Laine Marshall. The Major was as emotional as I had ever seen her as she stood over Dr. Greeley’s quickly cooling corpse. She looked like she wanted to kick it. Two security personnel, one of them Donovan’s superior whom I’d only ever seen from a distance, explained to Chandler that Dr. Greeley had begun to act odd the day before, arguing – for the umpteenth time – that leaving the bunker was foolhardy if not suicidal.

Then word came that he was refusing to leave and was barricading himself in his lab and Donovan and Major Harper had been called to calm him down and then talk some sense into him. Greeley must have taken the gun recently because none had ever come up missing during the frequent inventories that were still habit from when suicides had been such a problem. He aimed for the Major but Donovan took the bullets and then fired once hitting Greeley in the chest.

Donovan was messed up. One bullet skimmed his ribs, one went through the meaty part of his left bicep, but the worst was the one that lodged against his left thigh bone. They nearly lost him twice operating to remove that one. The bullet had hit nothing vital, the problem is all shock and blood loss.

Is. He’s not dead, not yet. The day before set to be the absolute last day that the final convoy was to evacuate the bunker the Major brought together the remaining personnel, only twenty-one of us if you counted an unconscious Donovan, and explained things.

We couldn’t wait any longer. We were already way behind schedule. We had no choice but to leave if we were to take advantage of the relatively clear weather patterns while they were there to take advantage of. The problem was that Donovan was in no shape to travel. He had miraculously improved from critical to serious but even with that there was no way to accommodate him; no room, no supplies, no way. The choices were to leave him here where he would surely parish painfully with no one to take care of him, try to take him and watch him die just as painfully and jeopardize twenty other lives, or help him to fall on a metaphorical sword and shoot him full of tranquilizers to the point his heart and lungs would cease to function and be able to put him to rest before we left.

No one wanted to decide. No matter which choice was made it was tantamount to murder. And after so much death had visited the Earth to willingly cause it was untenable.

For me the decision turned out to be simple; it took more effort to convince them than it took for me to choose it.

“Major, there’s a fourth option.”

Chapter Five

2010-02-25T16:18:00.000-08:00

Chapter 5

An hour later Donovan and Lt. Chandler started firing questions at me asking who had done it. I told them both to shut up.

“You will teach me a move or two that we haven’t been taught in our self defense training. I mean I don’t want anyone else to have seen it at all if possible. And no, it wasn’t Marshall or Cameron. I’ll deal with who it was, you keep your big fat noses out of this.”

“On the contrary Miss Chapman, as the CSC rep … “

“Oh, so we’re back to Miss Chapman are we? What happened to Emma?”

“You know girl, you are one of the most prickly little … “

“Yeah, I am. I warned you people. I warned you right up front that your stupid little game plan wasn’t going to work. We aren’t little Barbie dolls. You can’t force us to be different than any other human being you have running around in this bunker just because you find it convenient.”

“That was not the intent at all … Emma. It was to keep you women safe. What is so impossibly hard for you to understand about that?!”

I wasn’t getting my point across so I came up with another way. “What happens when you go on a diet? Or an even better example, try and quit smoking?”

They both looked at me like I had lost my mind but the nurse that was checking my vitals said, “Your cravings get worse.”

“A million dollars for the lady in white … Ouch! I’m not a flaming pin cushion you know and I’ve lost enough blood, let me keep what I have … Not only that, the cravings get out of proportion to reality. When you can’t have that cigarette you start feeling denied, cranky, foul, you name it. Eventually you fill the vacuum created with something else, but not necessarily something healthy.”

Lt. Chandler was getting the message, “Yes Miss Chapman, I understand but those aren’t the rules in place.”

“Then change the doggone rules! You are creating vacuums that … “ I was suddenly woozy and laid my head back. “Look, what you people are doing is wrong. It might have been with the best of intentions in the beginning but some of the most horrific things on earth have been done with the best of intentions.”

Knuckle-dragger extraordinaire that he was, even Donovan got it but he was still trying to put a good face on it. “Emma, I’m well aware that this takes male/female relationships back several centuries and that it will take time for everyone to get over the modern concept of dating and being able to pick your mate from a large pool of people.”

I felt bad for the poor guy. The grapevine had confirmed that his wife had left him for someone else in the bunker … his best friend to be precise … but he did have some pretty bad misconceptions that I was about to have to re-educate him on.

“Donovan …” I started, a little exasperated even though I wasn’t trying to be mean about it. “Oh look, let’s just say upfront, I know about your wife and what she did. I’m sure whether you want it to be or not, that’s coloring your view here and I don’t blame you for it but I really think we need to clear up some stuff here. First, they didn’t do things this way centuries ago. There’s the story of the Sabine women as told by Plutarch but even that is mostly just legend and had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with the founding of Rome … and in the end the women were given free choice of whether to stay or go … and with that freedom most were willing to stay. In the ‘centuries past’ that you seem to think we are going, fathers thought long and hard about what families they would give their daughter in marriage to. It was an important decision often done to cement relations, exchange land and money or something similar, provide grandchildren to carry on the family business, but more often than not the girls still had some exposure to society beforehand so that they would know what they were getting into. It was understood that they should have a measure of freedom before taking on the responsibilities of marriage and family. It is only in very closed societies, some of the Muslim countries come to mind as a good example of this, that women are kept completed sequestered but even with those cultures women have managed over the centuries to create their own society. But you are asking us to see that a portion of our society, our population, is free and you are denying us our share of that allowed freedom. Instead we 5’s are either slaves or prisoners … or both.”

Donovan isn’t as dumb as he plays at, underneath that skull of steel is a perfectly good brain and he knows how to use it. “Emma, of course I understand what you are saying. Many of us do. But I don’t get to write the rules I’m only charged with enforcing them.”

“That’s a copout. You may not write the rules but you have the capacity to influence them. Both of you do.”

Lt. Chandler said, “I’ll do what I can Chapman but I have to live on my side of the aisle.”

The way she said it made me look at her. “You’re afraid that they’ll do this to you aren’t you?”

Donovan looked at Chandler, really looked, and then said, “You’ve got to be kidding?! You can’t think … ”

“Ask any single and unattached female in the Bunker. We all know that if you’ll do that to them you are capable of doing the same thing to us.”

“What’s this us/you crap?” Donovan demanded completely stunned.

“Donovan … Chandler gets it, don’t you see? This whole thing is getting turned into a battle of the genders. It’s bad mojo on so many different levels and the dissonance has only just begun. The longer it goes on the worse it is going to get and it’ll start bleeding over into everything else. Has anyone thought what the 5’s actually mean to the free daughters over in the family units? I bet some of the women have, if not consciously then unconsciously, and that is one reason they dislike us so much; they see their future, their daughters’ futures.”

I started coughing and ripped something so bad it hurt. The nurse called the doctor over and he shooed Donovan and Chandler out. Two days later I was cleared to return to my duties in Level 5 and even managed to get their under my own steam; all be it escorted by a couple of burley security dudes, at least as far as the main hallway to home sweet home. I hadn’t seen Donovan or Chandler so I figured my words had been ignored again.

Everyone on 5 gave me the cold shoulder, either because they agreed with my “punishment” or because they didn’t want (or were too afraid) to get involved. There had been a temporary replacement for Mrs. Valdez in my absence … Lou … and I don’t know who was happier for her to go, Lou herself or the 5’s. Not that anyone sat down and told me the details but my understanding was that Lou was a hard task master and could have cared less about what the women wanted. It was her way, period.

Climbing to my bunk was asking the impossible and I simply didn’t trust anyone in the dorm anymore so I learned to sleep leaning back in my chair with my feet on my desk. The door locked and that was all I cared about. I got clean coveralls out of the warehouse until I could climb the ladder to get to my stuff. As I expected someone had tried to break into it but I’d lived in dorms too long not to know how to lock something so it would stay locked. I hauled all of my gear to my cubicle and went about turning the tiny space into my permanent living quarters. The new security cameras that had been installed in my absence would have shown what I was doing but no one ever came to stop me. The space I ended up with was little more than a cubby hole but it was comfortable and provided a measure of security I hadn’t had before so I was more than content to deal with its short comings.

Either the women that had beat me up were satisfied with their pound of flesh or rethought their strategy; either way they never approached me again. I was uninvited to the next two committee meetings so I figured it was payback for being such a pain in the backside. I kept doing my job, it was the only thing I had left, I didn’t even bother trying to learn the piano any longer. I admit I was sliding into a blue funk but since there wasn’t anything I could do to change things … I’d given it all I had left … I just kept putting one foot in front of the other just to prove to myself I could.

Then one morning about a month after the beat down we had some visitors. I was sitting at the far end of the cafeteria away from everyone going over paperwork as was my habit to avoid having to realize I was being ignored as much as possible when none other than Col. Mackey, Maj. Harper, and Lt. Chandler filed in. I nearly choked on my powdered egg omelet.

Col. Mackey came to the podium and without preamble began, “You recognize me. You know who I am. And let me say that I’m none too happy to be here. It does not behoove you to displease me further. Be that as it may beginning tomorrow you will receive a new work rotation schedule. Your cooperation is mandatory; your behavior will be exemplary. This is a test, fail it and there will be no more chances. Pass and additional opportunities may be presented to you.”

And with that she and the Major left the room and left behind a bunch of stunned faces. Lt. Chandler came over to where I sat pretending to read some report or other and trying hard not to reveal my shaking hands.

“You know, I nearly lost a pay grade over this.” I looked up at her. “Donovan too. The Major and Colonel came back from a couple of those hush-hush Level 1 meetings smelling a little singed around the edges. I hope your 5’s appreciate it.”

“When did they suddenly become my 5’s?” I asked irritated that she was dumping that load of guilt on me.

“When you decided to turn into Don Quixote and go on a crusade for their rights … and then made at least a few people understand that if it could happen to the 5’s it couldn’t happen to any of us. If the powers that be would have listened to you in the beginning we might have been able to avoid the Valdez incident all together.” She left and as I slowly got up to head to my work station I saw nearly every eye in the room on me. I beat feet fast after that.

I stayed in the warehouse through lunch. I hadn’t been particularly hungry anyway. I was having a mild heart attack over how fast the TP was being used up when Laine Marshall came in with a tray. “You missed self defense practice again.”

“I’m still sore.”

“Best time to work out the kinks in those muscles. Look, everyone wants to know what Chandler meant.”

“And you got the short straw?”

She laughed, “Yeah, something like that.”

“What’s to tell? I’m in the same boat as everyone else. I don’t like being caged up. I can’t fight for my own freedom without hauling everyone else along with me. End of story.”

“Yeah, keep telling yourself that,” she said with a small, sad smile. “I’m sorry I didn’t warn you that they were making threats. The only excuse I have … I thought it was just all talk.”

I could have made an issue of it, made her and some of the others feel guilty but what was the use. I could hear Mr. Epstein in my ear as I said, “Forget about it. It’s not where your heels have been, it’s where your toes are pointed. It’s already ancient history. Let’s focus on passing this stupid test Mackey threatened us with.”

Things didn’t suddenly turn to all sunshine and light. The women got to experience firsthand just how prejudiced some of the bunker population was … mostly Level 2’s and mostly that stupid passive aggressive junk but we did have to take some of the crap that certain men like to dish out. Even with that it was still a form of freedom and that was a heck of a lot more than we’d had before. In the beginning only small work crews were allowed out at a time. I don’t know if it was retribution or if they thought I had enough work to begin with but I never got assigned to the crews that went into Man’s Land.

Truthfully I had about all the contact I cared to have with the Outside in those committee meetings that I got re-invited to. People acted like it was the same old-same old but I bet if those walls could have talked I would have gotten an earful from what must have gone on while the new work rotations for the 5’s were discussed. The only member that seemed unreservedly happy about it was Charlie Braintree. Having the extra hands – and experienced from where we had been doing our own maintenance – helped his department out dramatically. Everyone else avoided the subject when at all possible. Donovan made a few sarcastic remarks on occasion but since a little birdie had told me that he’d gone to bat for us I didn’t really hold it against him … but I didn’t exactly turn down the opportunity to needle him every once in a while, watching him try and not squirm was too much like fun.

I haven’t written about the real outside world since Impact Day. I’m not sure how to adequately describe what has happened. It’s hard to get the big picture from just a few words. In the committee meetings I learned we still had intermittent satellite contact. It was intermittent because the impact destroyed some of the satellites, disabled others, and the debris that remains in the atmosphere interferes with the transmissions from the rest. The computers devoted to weather prediction went bonkers because the data from the weather satellites was like nothing anyone had ever seen.

You start with all the blow down that occurred during the seismic and blast events. Two-thirds of the forest around our bunker was toppled, the remaining trees stripped of their leaves and damaged. And that is pretty light damage compared to forests closer to impact areas. It reminds me of what the forests around Mount St. Helen looked like after the eruption back in 1980. Imagine all the forests of the world looking like that … ok, not all of them but most of them. The human dwellings around the world suffered the same fate. Add that the heated atmosphere caused wildfires to burst to life globally, a sharp increase in evaporation took place and it was like a multi- year drought had been condensed into a much shorter timeframe of days and weeks.

The tsunamis took their toll as well leaving completely altered coastlines scraped as smooth as a baby’s bottom … metaphorically speaking anyway. Waves bounced back and forth across all waters that received impacts for days like huge ripples causing further coastal erosion and depositing huge debris piles that were revealed as the water gradually receded.

The craters from the impacts themselves were often miles in diameter, the larger ones in excess of fifty miles in diameter. All of that debris had to go someplace. The low energy ejecta is what came down on top of all of the other damage that was suffered. The debris around our area ranged in size from large gravel to little more than sandpaper grit. They estimated it to be a foot thick in some areas. Good views from the satellites indicated that the ejecta had completely obscured recognizable land features in other areas and had clogged most water ways making it undrinkable without a great deal of filtering. Even the great ice sheets at the poles were covered with it and looked incredibly dirty from space.

But not all of the ejecta came down. The high energy ejecta was boosted as far as the stratosphere and then settled into the atmosphere, blanketing the planet in what amounts to clouds of dirty ash completely altering the global weather patterns. Think the Krakatau effect only on a much, much larger scale. The dust continues to block the sun … and block photosynthesis in most of the world. Some locations it is worse off than others. In the beginning the rain, when it fell, was very acidic.

That isn’t to say though that the scientists were not surprised by things. As bad as Impact Day was, it could have been worse. The Earth’s mantle was not cracked. Our axis has not moved. Our orbit has not changed. The moon still rises and sets, tidal action continues to drive the oceans and seas. Not every forest has been laid to waste. There are still habitable areas of the world though none of them appear to be in former population centers.

In short order the ash in the atmosphere made it impossible to get more than rudimentary pictures of the Earth’s surface so we were back to using basic science to figure things out and that bugged the heck out of the Level 2 Ph.D.’s and their staffs.

Even in the bunker we felt the effects of the changes. Keeping the air filtration system clean was a real challenge. You could tell when the filters were getting dirty or when something had failed. There would be a fine layer of grit over all the flat surfaces when you woke up in the morning. Washing all of that grit down the drains caused the occasional plumbing back up that had physical plant scrambling to find the problem along the miles of pipes that serviced the bunker. Even the filters for our drinking water were compromised and we received ration notices several times as the weeks advanced to months.

We had just finished listening to another lecture from Mr. Braintree about the need to be careful since the bunker was the only home we were likely to have for the near term … and possibly long term … when Ms. Helms gave some of us a real kick in the pants.

Apparently she had been leading her own campaign and I guess Level 1 had finally caved just to get her off their backs. We were going to have a … gag … a party. I didn’t think that the 5’s were invited and was tuning her out when she said, “And of course, we can provide some rudimentary dance lessons to the 5’s. We need more partners for the single men to make up numbers.” I never did learn to trust her crocodile smile. All I could do at the time was sit there and look at her like she had lost her mind. Unfortunately everyone else seemed to think it was a fine idea and a great opportunity to have a little fun after what everyone had been through.

Donovan managed to keep a straight face until after the meeting had broken up and I was in the normal follow up meeting with Major Harper. He actually laughed at me. “What’s wrong Emma? Don’t you have a date for the prom?”

I wanted to kick him in the shin so bad but the Major did something even better. “You mean you already have your date picked out Donovan?”

“What?!”

“As the CSC rep, if we have to suffer through one of Mrs. Helms’ social events so do you.” Then it was my turn to laugh at the horrified look on his face.

The party actually didn’t turn out too bad. They became twice-monthly events that everyone seemed to look forward to and I danced the mandatory dance with a different partner every time just to keep people off my back. And life went on.

The first holidays after Impact Day were difficult for everyone but we lived. Most everyone did anyway, there were a couple of suicides amongst the more fragile members of our population. After that though we seemed to get beyond that stage in our collective grief.

That first year had no spring much less a summer or fall. Winter, once it came, never ended. Everyone got used to wearing coats and sweaters all the time; you just can’t heat a hole in the ground to match a summer’s day unless you turn off the air circulators and then breathing gets difficult and the air rank.

There was a brief spell where the weather stayed above zero for more than an hour or two at a time and exploration teams were sent to the nearest towns. That was around the 9-months-post-impact period. Not a living soul was found. The next teams that went out were salvage teams. All of the food was spoiled but there was stuff that had potential use. It all went into the main warehouse for “just in case.” No one was ready for artifacts that reminded them of their previous lives, not yet.

The first few times that contact was made with other survivor groups via the radio it was kept quiet by the Level 1’s. Eventually the information was released and there was general celebrating; we weren’t the only ones left alive. And bunker locations weren’t the only ones that survived, there were sparsely populated human habitations in several different places, but most of them lived very primitively with their only real technology the radio that kept them connected to the larger web of survivor groups.

Just like we made connections with other survivor groups, the 5’s were making connections of their own. Pairs formed and some of the women moved out of the Level 5 dorm … and then more paired off and moved out. Eventually there were less than a dozen of us left and of those, most had plans to pair off. Laine Marshall and I were really the only ones that hadn’t felt the pull of any particular partner yet. Not that we hadn’t thought about it but over what passed for coffee one afternoon we both just realized that, for us, we just needed something that we hadn’t found. What “it” was neither of us knew, we just knew that we hadn’t found “it” yet.

The days had developed a routine to them; a comfortable routine. We were inside were it was warm and safe. Outside was cold and dangerous. Some people worked on the salvage teams but not many; too few wanted to go Outside where unknown dangers lurked and you never knew that if you went Outside whether you would be coming back, we did lose salvagers on occasion.

We worked hard to keep the bunker, our world, in the best condition possible because it sheltered us and kept us safe. But sometimes God intervenes in our safe world. He has His reasons and I certainly don’t always understand them.

If I understand all of the reports and explanations correctly the increased seismic activity, pressure from water freezing in newly formed crevices, and the weight of records amount of snowfall caused cracks in the deep areas of the bunker that housed the power plant. Through these cracks seeped ground water; sometimes the water did more than just seep. They tried filling the cracks but water pressure or additional seismic activity reopened the cracks. Moving the equipment wasn’t an option; it was too massive. They tried pumping the water but the only place they had to pump it to was the Outside and the pipes were constantly freezing up causing the pumps to back up. Eventually the reality had to be faced, there was no way to fix it and the problem was rapidly getting worse.

It had been hushed up as long as it could be; people who worked in the plant area were forbidden to speak of it. To say we were all shocked to learn the extent of the problem was an understatement. When we learned what their solution was shock didn’t even scratch the surface.