Resurrection (Eden Book 3) (18 page)

“What’s your story? You’re old enough to have known the world, the way it was.”

“I am.” He kept watch down the block but did not look alarmed. “I was one of those guys who was ready. I was prepared.”

“For Zed?”

“For
whatever
. Up until the early 90s, for the Soviets. Then the terrorists. For the Yellowstone Caldera, for urban unrest, a space rock, you name it.

“Our house was secure. Gas grill, extra propane cylinders. Honda generator. We could go off the grid if we needed to. Our fridge had a transfer switch. We were all ready.

“I packed and kept bug-out bags for the house, for each of our cars. Went through the contents with my wife, taught her how to be comfortable with a pistol.”

Troi thought she heard a dog bark far off in the distance.

“I was at work when it happened. Like a lot of people, I worked quite a distance from where we lived. There was no way I could get back home. We had a rendezvous point, a place where we knew to meet. I went there. She wasn’t there. So I waited for them.

“And I waited. And still she didn’t come. Those early days, the government—when there was still a government—they quarantined everything. Maybe she couldn’t get out. Shit, I couldn’t get in. So I didn’t try anything stupid. I waited. Now, some people might have said waiting was a stupid thing.

“But I had my gear. I had my food. I had a gun. I holed up in the woods, by myself. I had my Mountain House meals, my water purifiers. I trapped small game.

“You know, the hardest part were those first few weeks. The nights. The nights were rough. Waiting. Just…having to wait. I knew if I left, I might miss them. Or I might get killed. I used to lie down to sleep, but I couldn’t sleep. I’d listen to the night and the things in it, listen for them. The planes going by, the vehicles and tanks, the voices of the people on the road. And then, after awhile, there were no more people or tanks or planes, and I knew there weren’t going to be.”

The night was very still around them.

“A few times, I heard her—heard my wife, heard her coming with our daughter—but it was only a dream, and I’d wake up.

“And then one day, I met a guy. A soldier. He had been. I think he must have deserted somewhere along the way. He didn’t say.

“He told me the city where we lived was gone. It had been nuked. I believed him, but I didn’t want to. I shared a meal with him, shared my water. He was in pretty rough shape. It was good to sit and talk with another human being after weeks of purposefully avoiding them.”

Troi found herself looking down the block where the guide was looking.

“That night, while we slept, he tried to kill me. Tried to take my stuff. But I killed him. Then I didn’t know what to do. What if he’d been lying to me? What if he hadn’t? What if they
had
bombed the city? Made it uninhabitable.

“I packed up and started for home, but, before I got very far, I met the sick people. They were dying. From the radiation. And I saw the fires, still burning on the horizon. I knew that soldier was right.

“I went back to the rendezvous point. I waited.” He switched the barrel of his MM1 to the crook of his other arm. “But they never came.

“I’ve spent a lot of time since then thinking. Wondering why I’m alive and they’re not. And I don’t have a good answer for that. I have no answer at all.”

“I’m sorry,” offered Troi.

“Ahhh. It’s funny, how much the world can change in twenty-five years. Mine was an age of God, of gods. People believed. People your age don’t believe anymore.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“I don’t think so. I think it’s up to the individual. Life leaves you wondering sometimes, right? And there never seem to be many answers. But then, all of a sudden, something happens, and it’s like an answer been handed to you. I guess if you have faith in something, that kind of thing might reaffirm it for ya.”

“You mean like Anthony with Mickey and everything?”

“Yeah, maybe. I don’t know.”

They stood together quietly for some time.

“Go get some sleep, Krieger. I’ll keep an eye on things.”

The guide shook his head. “No, don’t think I will. Think I’ll enjoy this night. You go on and get back to bed. I’ll be around to wake you up soon enough.”

“You sure?”

The guide grunted by way of reply, and Troi figured their conversation was over. She stared off into the dark for a few more moments, to where the houses and the remains of homes disappeared, before turning and heading back to her sleeping bag.

The next morning they left the city behind them for the countryside. The clouds were layered one atop the other like billowing smoke for as far as the eye could see. Spots of white shined through amid the cerulean, above the red and brown and green treetops. The clouds looked choppy and violent—a typical sky after a heavy rain.

They walked across green fields, upon which splashes of yellow and red pooled beneath trees. The rains had brought the leaves down. Of the leaves left on branches, clumps of green held out against the oranges and browns.

They spotted the large expanse of concrete slab amid the grasses from a distance.

“Hey,” said Evan. “Let’s go check it out.”

“Why?” asked Troi.

“This way.” Riley led them. Krieger squinted one eye and watched her walk toward the slab, followed by her brother and their friends. The other girl looked back at Krieger before reluctantly going along.

Now why’d they want to go bothering about something like that?
Krieger sighed. He took a swallow from his bottle, screwed it shut, and went after them.

Rain waters had pooled on the concrete. An enclosed, portable toilet stood in one corner of the slab. They stepped out of the grass and onto the hardened cement.

“What do you think this was?” Riley asked.

“Warehouse or something stood here once,” said Evan. “That sound right, Krieg?”

The guide grunted. He didn’t know and didn’t particularly care.

They stepped around the puddle, across the concrete, and towards the small shack-like restroom.

“What is that?” Anthony asked as they neared it.

“Port-a-potty.” Krieger hacked and spit into the puddle. “Shit house,” he offered for further clarification.

“This wasn’t a warehouse, Ev,” said Anthony. “They were going to build something here. That’s why they have the…
shit house
.”

“Maybe they were going to build a warehouse,” said Evan.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

Riley reached the port-a-potty first. She tapped on its side with the barrel of her Model 7. There was a door on the front of the thing and it was closed.

“Wait.” Troi had the stock of her rifle pressed tight to her shoulder. “Wait, Rye.”

Riley turned and gave her a
why
-look, but just as she did so there was a noise from inside the port-a-potty. She danced nimbly away from it.

“Whoa!” Evan said.

Four Model 7s aimed at the enclosed toilet. Something was inside it. Something that had moved and thumped against an interior wall.

“Hey—Who’s in there?” Anthony called out.

Krieger rolled his eyes. He hadn’t drawn his pistol or taken Bertha off his back. He stood there gripping staff and his bottle of booze by the neck.

“What do you think is in there?” Evan said, squinting down the barrel of his Model 7.

“It’s locked inside.” None of them felt particularly relieved by Riley’s remark.

“How do you know that?” demanded Evan.

“It would be out here if it wasn’t.”

“She’s right.” Troi feathered the trigger of her Model 7, wanting to depress it. “What do we do?”

“Leave it here?” Anthony wondered aloud.

They all looked when Krieger snorted then spit. “Fuck no. We can’t just leave it here. You all know that.”

“So then what do we do?”

“Shoot it up,” volunteered Troi.

“No,” said Evan. “Let’s pour one of Krieger’s bottles around this thing, set its dead ass on fire.”

“Fuck if you’re wasting my hooch.”

“I’ll open the door,” said Riley. “When it comes out, somebody just shoot it. But wait for me to get out of the way.”

“Sis, don’t—”

“I’ll be okay.” She stepped gingerly to the port-a-potty. Whatever was inside was keeping quiet.

“Rye…” Troi steadied her assault rifle.

Riley reached the port-a-potty. “On three, okay?” She never took her eyes off the little structure. “One…” She reached out and touched the door latch. “Two…” Anthony swallowed. “Three.”

Riley pulled the door open and ran away from the toilet. A fully dressed human skeleton had slumped inside, half on and half off the commode.

“Holy shit.” Evan sighed.

“
That’s
messed up,” said Anthony.

“That’s
sad
,” Troi saw it differently. “That’s so sad.”

“What?” asked Evan, “That he died on the crapper?”

“This,” said Riley, “is almost as disturbing as the couple back in the house. With the kid.”

“This is worse,” said Troi. “This guy died alone.”

“Yeah.” Anthony looked in on the slouching skeleton. “He did.”

Krieger raised his bottle in a mock toast.

“There it is.” The guide’s voice sounded pleased. Anthony, Riley, and Evan paused and gazed into the distance. A rock formation rose out of the trees several kilometers away. The granite monolith seemed a beacon in the countryside around it, as if it had been planted there by some supreme being, an overarching power, set in place to keep watch on the rest of the countryside.

Krieger stood smiling, looking to the mighty stone, his eyes clear and focused.

“It’s beautiful.” Troi thought it was one of the prettiest things she had ever seen in her life.

“It is,” agreed Riley.

“Hey, Anthony. Does that look like the earth has an erection to you?”

“That sounds like something my father would say, Ev. But yeah.”

A flock of warblers passed by overhead.

“Hey, Krieg, wait up!”

The guide forged ahead, planting the Bo before him, moving more quickly than earlier. The four friends hustled to keep up, noting Krieger’s newfound determination and purpose. They journeyed without break or pause, following the man.

Anthony had noticed, in the last few days, how the colors of the leaves were changing even more dramatically out here in the countryside than they had been at home. And the farther west they travelled, the deeper and richer the colors. The ground they walked on was wet, and the leaves that had come off the trees were damp.

He turned up the volume on his Geiger meter. …
click
…
click
…
click
… The radiation was at an acceptable level here.

On their trek to the monolith, they passed a prodigious hunk of steel and ruined electronics smashed into the earth.

“What’s that?” Troi asked.

“It’s a satellite,” Krieger called over his shoulder as he maintained his pace.

“Where’d it come from?”

Evan looked to the sky.

It took several hours to reach the base of the rock, and when they had, it was the middle of the day. Krieger stood staring up at it. The look on his bearded face was somewhere between awe and reverence.

“Nice rock. Now which way?”

“Up.”

“
Up
?” Evan looked at his friends.

“Up?” asked Anthony. This hadn’t been part of the plan as far as he knew. “We have time for this?”

“Hey Krieg…Bear up there?”

The guide hadn’t taken his eyes off the monolith. “I’m camping up there tonight.” One of his hands rummaged around beneath his furs.

“We’re camping up there tonight? Krieg, how are we going to get up there?”

“I said I’m camping up there tonight,” he repeated. He did not sound perturbed. He was still staring up at the rock. “You can sleep down here if you want. You keep heading that way,” the guide gestured northwest with the hand that wasn’t digging around in his furs, “you’ll find Bear in a couple of days.” Krieger moved his hands a few degrees westward. “Don’t go that way. Munts that way.”

“
Munts
?” Riley looked at Troi.

“Here we go…” Krieger’s hand came out from under his furs with a greasy-looking crumpled brown paper bag. He took his eyes off the peak long enough to reach inside the bag, draw his hand out, and stuff whatever it was he had in his grasp into his mouth. He began to chew.

“What you got there, Krieg?”

“Here.” The guide looked seriously at Evan then the others. “Get over here. All of you.”

They stepped somewhat hesitantly towards Krieger, forming a loose circle around the man. “Put your hands out.” Krieger upended the bag and shook it, displacing some of its contents in each upraised palm.

“What is this?” Anthony scrunched up his nose.

“Is this a turd?”

“No, it ain’t no goddamned turd.” Krieger opened his mouth and tapped on the bag until the last of its contents emptied into his mouth. He looked back up to the rock as he chewed. “Eat those.”

“What are we supposed to do with these?” Riley asked her friends.

“Eat ‘em, I said.”

Troi shrugged her shoulders and popped whatever it was she held into her mouth.

“What are these?” Evan stared suspiciously into his hand.

Anthony nibbled tentatively at the morsel he palmed. “Yuck.”

“Here.” Krieger held out his bottle of booze without looking away from the rock formation looming over them.

“No, it’s okay…” Anthony swallowed down whatever the guide had given them behind a few swigs from his canteen.

“Anthony…” Riley cast her brother a concerned look, but the look he returned was carefree.

“What are these?” Evan asked a third time, insistently.

The guide’s tone sounded somewhat put upon. “They’re mushrooms, all right? Now eat ‘em or leave me the hell alone.”

As Evan chewed his face blanched. “These taste like shit.”

Krieger laughed.

“I’m glad you think it’s funny.”

“Hey, I don’t know if anyone noticed…” Riley did her best to sound nonchalant. “…but we’ve still got a couple of hours before night.”

“Yeah, Krieg.” Evan swallowed down a mouthful of water from his hydration pack. “What was all that about wasting daylight and all?”