- - End of All Things, The (35 page)

“No, buddy, stay here and guard Carly,” Justin said. As if Sam had understood what he said, he headed for the stairs. “Don’t wake her up!” 

Justin closed the door behind him and headed for the barn. Shadowfax gave one of her snorting rumbles when she saw Justin and ambled over to him. He spoke to her softly for a few moments before he began to harness her to the wagon. He kept returning his gaze to her bulging sides. He wished he knew what was wrong with her. 

Despite the amount of exercise she got every day, she continued to swell. Justin had little experience with horses, except what he’d picked up in the Middle East, where some of the people still used them as daily transportation. He theorized she had a blockage of some type in her digestive system. It frustrated him to be so powerless to help her. The bulging stomach didn’t seem to bother her, and she seemed otherwise healthy, so he hoped it was something from which she could recover on her own—and not only for Carly’s sake.

Shadowfax and Sam were the first animals he had let into his heart since Winston died, and as much as his practical side might urge him to protect himself, there was no way he could keep his emotions disengaged.

He and Shadowfax started out down the road just as the sun broke over the horizon. He expected to reach town by about noon, and his estimate was not far off. He watched Shadowfax carefully for any signs of nervousness as they approached the small town, but she seemed relaxed. 

The streets were silent except for the chirping of birds from the nearby trees and the skitter of a few fallen leaves across the pavement. Justin kept a watchful eye on the windows of the buildings they passed, searching for signs of movement or the flash of gunmetal in the folds of a curtain. He listened carefully for any interruption to the chatter of the birds in the trees, which, experience had taught him, was an excellent indicator of danger.

Weeds were growing up through the cracks in the pavement, and many of the buildings were already showing neglect; some were missing shingles, and others had broken windows. Nature took over quickly without maintenance. Many doors had been forced open and hung ajar like gaping mouths.

Justin stopped the wagon in front of a grocery store and unharnessed Shadowfax; he didn’t want to leave her vulnerable. The horse tossed her head and butted his shoulder with her nose before ambling over to check out the selection of vegetation at the side of the parking lot. 

The glass door in the front of the store had been broken. Justin pushed it open and crept inside. The lack of debris on the floor among the shards of glass told him the window had been broken recently, and though his instincts and senses told him he was alone inside, he remained cautious.

He clicked on his flashlight and swept the beam across the room. The shelves were mostly bare. There wasn’t even enough to fill his backpack, but he carried it outside and loaded it into the wagon before heading to the baby aisle. 

It gave him pause to see the shelves of diapers untouched.

Justin didn’t know if Carly had noticed the lack of babies and children, and he certainly didn’t want to bring it up. He didn’t like to think of it or speculate as to the reasons why. If he was wrong about the baby being exposed to the Infection while in the womb, they could be facing the grief of losing their child after it was born. The idea terrified him. Already, he could feel a bond of love forming between himself and the baby, and the bond grew stronger every day. 

He had tried to hold his heart in check and had tried to caution Carly to do the same with his warnings of the things that could go wrong. But she couldn’t hold back any more than he could. A few centuries ago, parents could expect to lose half of their children before adulthood, but Justin imagined they hadn’t been any more successful at “protecting” their hearts from the grief of loss, as much as they expected it.

He carried out armloads of diapers to the wagon. He had no idea how many diapers a baby used on a daily basis, so he took every package plus all the baby wipes. He remembered Carly furtively trying to clean up with them when they were on the road and she wasn’t able to bathe; it made him chuckle. He’d known the lack of hot showers would be hard on her the moment he had seen how stringently clean she kept that little apartment of hers. 

He saw a package of pacifiers and plucked them from the rack. He frowned at the package, a vague memory tugging at the edges of his mind, something about pacifiers not being good for babies, but he couldn’t remember. He tossed them into his bag, just in case. Carly could always throw them out if she didn’t want their baby to use them, he reasoned. It was better to have them and not need them than vice versa
.

There weren’t many jars of baby food left, likely taken by adults when they couldn’t find anything else, which further confirmed his suspicion the town had been picked clean of food. But there were some cans of baby formula and containers of powdered mix. Carly intended to breastfeed, but Justin knew there was a possibility it might not work, and there was no lactation consultant she could go to for advice. He took a selection of baby bottles and differently shaped nipples, an item which interested him as he’d never known there was any variation or that babies might prefer one type to another.

He was then faced with the bewildering array of baby medicines and toiletries. There were creams for diaper rash, baby washes and shampoos, and teething medication. He picked up a box of the latter and flipped it over to read the back, hoping it might indicate at what age babies began to grow teeth. The words danced across the box, and he blinked hard to try to force them back into place. 

He gave up with a sigh of frustration and turned the package over again. The baby pictured on the front was sitting up, and he knew they couldn’t do that right away, but other than that, he had no way of estimating the baby’s age. He knew less about babies than he did about horses.

He added the package to his backpack—just in case—along with a bright yellow rubber duck he found on the shelf below. It made him smile.
Every kid should have a rubber duckie
, he thought. He’d never had anything like that as a kid, but he was sure he would have loved it.

At the front of the store, Justin vaulted over the Customer Service Desk and searched around on the shelves below until he found a phone book. He flipped through the pages and cursed himself for not thinking to bring along his plastic filter. The tiny words were scrambled all over the page, but he managed to glean enough information to know where he needed to go after consulting the map in the front of the book.

There wasn’t a pediatrician’s office in town, but there was a small clinic. Justin went out to the wagon and whistled for Shadowfax, who trotted over to him, still chewing on a bunch of flowers she had ripped up, stems and all. He harnessed her and steered the wagon through the silent streets. 

Even the houses on the side avenues had been looted. It surprised him. Though the town was at an intersection of two major highways, he hadn’t expected so many travelers to pass through. So far, the houses he had found out in the rural area around their new home had provided a bounty of canned goods, but he didn’t doubt travelers would begin fanning out once they couldn’t find anything in the city.

He stopped the wagon in front of the clinic but didn’t unharness Shadowfax. He didn’t expect to be inside for very long. It was likely the place would be looted to the bare walls. Justin hoped there might be some sort of reference texts inside. Failing that, there was a used bookstore a few blocks away.

As he had expected, the medicine lockers had been broken out and what drugs hadn’t been taken were scattered on the floor in a jumble. He sorted through boxes and bottles, reading them in the beam of his flashlight as best he could. He would have to wait until he got back to the house to be certain. 

He didn’t find any non-refrigerated vaccines, and though he hadn’t really expected to, he was disappointed. He thought for a moment about how he was going to tell Carly. He knew it concerned her. He tried to reassure himself that their exposure to other people would be limited, and so risk was less, but he couldn’t talk himself into believing that there was no need to worry and didn’t think he’d have any more luck convincing Carly.

He gathered up what he thought would be useful and searched drawers until he found the equipment he thought he might need—items which didn’t seem to have been touched. The scalpel he picked up glittered menacingly in the low light. That particular item he wrapped in a towel and hid deep within his pack. He would prefer Carly not see it. If it came down to that . . . He didn’t even want to think about it.

There was an office at the back of the clinic, and the books Justin was looking for were on the shelves. They made him feel a little better. He had more than seven months to study up on the subject and perhaps be prepared to deal with any problems that might arise. Like the potatoes, it made him more confident having a goal, something he could work toward rather than waiting helplessly to see what fate would dish out to them.

Justin exited the clinic to find that Shadowfax had got herself and the wagon stuck when she wandered away to graze on the elevated flower beds. She swished her tail when she saw him, and Justin had to help her figure out how to back the wagon out of the position she’d gotten it stuck in. Justin shook his head. “No wonder you’re fat,” he told her and patted her sleek neck.

“Next stop, the vet’s office,” Justin told her. Shadowfax flicked her ears at the word and Justin chuckled. “Not fond of the vet, eh? Well, don’t worry. The office is closed until further notice.” She turned her head to look back at him, and Justin gestured to the road in front of them. “Ladies first.” She ambled forward and Justin leaned back in his seat, the reins held loosely in one hand. Except for a light tug to the left or right, he didn’t need to use them. But, to prevent another stuck wagon, he tied her halter to a pillar when he stopped the wagon in front of the veterinarian’s office.

There, he had more luck. It hadn’t been looted, so he was able to find parasite blockers and the vitamins Carly had wanted for Sam. There was also a nice selection of pain medication; some of them were the same drugs that humans used. He glanced over at the dark, silent refrigerator where the vaccines had been stored and sighed. His biggest concern for Sam was rabies, as often as he hunted, and all Justin was able to do was protect him from heartworm and fleas.

The storage room contained a large selection of pet food, which he loaded into the wagon. A memory of Carly’s disgust when he mentioned eating dog food to her back in the grocery store in Juneau flitted through his mind, and he chuckled.

His next stop was the book store, where he found the door was still intact. It seemed people were not yet aware of what an incredible treasure trove of knowledge the store represented. As the years passed, the information would only grow more valuable. He was glad he’d thought to bring his lock picking kit. He wouldn’t want to leave the books exposed to the elements by breaking the door open. 

Inside he paused, a familiar stench sour in his nostrils. He swept a flashlight around until he found her. The woman was sprawled in one of the chairs, her book still open on her lap, and he estimated she’d been dead for a month or so. Insects scattered and squirmed under the beam of his light, and he saw a small, empty vial of pills on the floor under her slack hand.

Once, he had seen human bodies simply as empty containers, and the old Justin would have walked past her without a second glance, but the new Justin—Carly’s Justin—gave her the small gift of last respects.

On the wall was a banner announcing a book festival. Justin tugged it down and laid it over the woman’s body. He wondered why she had come to the bookstore, but maybe it had been the place that had once made her happiest. He laid the book on top of her makeshift shroud. 

He wondered what this woman had been like and what had led her to the choice she made. Loneliness? Fear she might be victimized? Grief? Despair? He began to see how precious Carly’s hope was; hope could give a person a reason to go on when there was nothing else left. He left the woman to her tomb of tomes and headed for the back.

In the staff break room, he found a snack machine. Justin smashed the glass front with the butt of his flashlight and scooped the snacks into one of the store satchels. There were also a couple of large containers of coffee along with containers of creamer and sugar. He checked inside the refrigerator and got a couple of cans of soda and a few more non-perishable snacks from the lunch bags.

From the store, he carried totes stuffed full of books for Carly. She was a fast reader, and he hated the idea of her snowed in with nothing to read. There was an entire section of baby books, and Justin chose a dozen at random, including one on natural childbirth and one on breastfeeding he thought might be helpful.

At the front counter, Justin found something delightful: a battery-powered CD player. Thanks to the hours of duets they’d sung on the road, he knew quite a few of her favorite groups. He filled his backpack with CDs. The store also had a wide selection of used DVDs, and he briefly considered ways to rig up a TV for her, but he remembered the movie in Fraser had just seemed to make her sad, watching memories of a world that was dead and gone. 

He was searching the drawers below the counter for anything useful when he saw a picture hanging on the wall behind the register. He couldn’t be certain, but it looked like the woman in the chair. In the photo, she grinned, her eyes sparkling with excitement, as she and a customer posed in the midst of making a purchase. A dollar bill was mounted in the matting below the image, above a brass plate engraved with words he could not read. Justin glanced back over at the still form below the banner and understood why she had chosen this place. She had not been able to survive the death of her dream.

As Justin headed for the door, he saw a book on primitive woodworking and paused to pick it up, thinking it might be possible such information could come in handy at a later time. He opened the book to a random page and saw a photo of a project he instantly knew he wanted to do. But where would he get the tools? An idea occurred to him, and he found another phone book under the sales counter. The place he was looking for was only about a block away.