The Last Tribe (4 page)

It was cold and dark inside.  Greg
timed his journey with a rising half moon.  He had two weeks of half to full
and then back to half moon again.  It provided light for his hike.  Inside the
house his only source of light was gone.  Greg stood in the kitchen just inside
the window, as if he were a burglar, keeping quiet and still.  He considered
using a flashlight, but he did not want to draw attention to the house.

The home was empty.  It was a
perfect place for him to spend his first night, but Greg was wide awake.  The short
trip had taken more time than he expected, but there was plenty of night left
for him to walk. 

He considered his options.  He
could go back to campus, and settle into The Founder’s Library at Hightower. 
It was a small brick building with comfortable furniture and a giant fire
place.  He could live there through the winter.  He thought the cold might mask
the smell of the rotting corpses.

Hightower was the safe and easy
choice, except there was no food.  Greg scoured the dining hall kitchen for
non-perishable food, but it was all gone, eaten by healthcare workers and
government officials during their occupation of the school.  He scavenged a few
cans of franks and beans, and one large can of green beans, but his food
options were reduced to sifting through dorm rooms for candy bars and snack
foods.  Yesterday he ate his last bowl of beans.

Greg had not spoken to anyone for a
month, and he desperately wanted to see another person.  Hightower was
deserted.  If making the trip to Hanover gave him the opportunity to find his
father and brothers or one of his uncles, and he could talk to someone?  That
reward alone was worth the journey.  Greg needed companionship.

He made the decision to move
forward towards New Hampshire.  The practice run to Ms. Berry’s was over.

Greg’s eyes adjusted to the
darkness as he felt around the kitchen cabinets.  He opened several in hopes of
finding food.  He was rewarded with a pantry of soup.  He pulled the top off a
can and used two fingers like a spoon to taste the contents.  He could not read
the label in the dark, but was so ravenous he did not care what flavor he
scooped.  He brought the can closer and continued to finger the thick, cold
split pea soup into his mouth.  Despite the temperature and unappealing
consistency, Greg devoured the can quickly.

He washed his fingers in the
kitchen sink before cupping water into his mouth to drink.

Greg placed the two additional cans
of soup from the cabinet into his backpack.  His former teacher was a single
woman who hated to cook.  The only other food he could find was a box of raisin
bran.  Greg pulled the plastic bag from the box and placed the cereal in his
pack before zipping the top compartment and slinging it.

He unlocked the door to the
backyard, walked outside, and made his way to Highway 93 North. 

His stride was longer and his pace
quicker as he began the journey to meet his family in Hanover, New Hampshire.

“Rock and roll.”  He said aloud.  His
white teeth reflected the moonlight as he grinned.

When the Dixon brothers hung up the
phone on what would be their last call, Paul was in mourning. His house was in
a small subdivision setback from the road and away from busy streets.  His
location provided the advantage of being in a populous area, Cincinnati, while
remote enough that it would be overlooked.  He was in essence hiding in plain
sight, and faced no danger of being found or captured.

Cincinnati, Ohio’s population was just
over one million people.  Like many Midwestern cities, it did not have a
natural border such as a large lake or ocean.  It sprawled in all directions. 
Some might argue the Ohio river presented a boundary as it ran along the
southern border of the city, but in reality, the river posed only a state
change to Kentucky.  People who worked in Cincinnati commuted across state
lines.  The million plus population of Cincinnati lived over hundreds of square
miles, multiple counties, and dozens upon dozens of towns.  Without a
centralized population to patrol or contain, the government was helpless with
regards to looting, rioting, and unrest, and was toothless implementing any
plan to capture the population.  As Cincinnati burned, Paul lived safely in the
house he and Rachel shared for the last ten years.

He ate, listened to the radio, and
read books while he waited for everyone to die.  If Cincinnati’s  timeline was
consistent with other major cities on the coasts, Paul would be safe and alone by
the end of October.  He would begin looking for survivors in November or
December.

Paul was a packrat.  Rachel kept
him honest, making him part with broken items, but Paul’s basement held things
from his graduate school and bachelor years.  He found his old hotplate and an
electric tea kettle, both of which would work off his solar panel back-up
generator.  His inability to dispose of bachelor days provided a way to boil
water and cook food.

He owned an additional handheld
solar charger for small electronics, and a solar shower if he needed to get
clean.  Paul and Rachel enjoyed hiking, and utilized solar technology when
possible.  They were not environmentalists per se, rather outdoor enthusiasts
who wanted fully charged cell phones while on the trail. 

Paul’s life was boring, safe, and offered
a few conveniences when the sun shined.

He and Rachel, though a household
of two, shopped at warehouse clubs.  They typically had a few months’ of food
stored around the house.  He had a 25lb bag of rice and a 10lb bag of dried
beans.  He had pasta in all shapes and sizes, and he had 30 or more cans of
tuna fish.  He and Rachel were athletic, power bars and gels were abundant. 
Without scavenging at other homes, which he intended to do, Paul had several
months of food, perhaps half a year, if he rationed. 

The first month of Paul’s solitude was
stressful.  Paul listened to the radio as newscasters relayed panic and hysteria,
the death tolls in the East, the devastation on the other continents, and the
100% contagion and mortality rate of the rapture.  Scientists and doctors spoke
about not having enough time to figure out the disease.  After the first month,
the radio broadcasters were gone, replaced by a government loop message “Survivors
should come to government shelters.  If you are not sick, seek help
immediately.  Food and water will be provided.” 

Each day Paul sat on his deck and
debated going to a shelter.  Some days he would get into his car or jump on his
bike, but he never made the trip.  Paul was not sure if the shelters were a
trick to round up healthy people and use them as guinea pigs, or if the
invitation was sincere.  The swiftness of the rapture made Paul’s decision for
him.  Everyone died before he could turn himself into the authorities. 

Paul stayed in his house, bored,
whittling away the time reading or staying in shape on his bike trainer.  During
his third month of solitude the government messages stopped broadcasting.  The
lights from Cincinnati were out.  Paul waited two weeks after the radio went
dead before he set out to find other people. 

It was the beginning of December.

An avid cyclist, Paul pulled down
one of his bikes to take a ride.  The sun was shining, it was a warm late fall
day, and Paul needed to see if there were any survivors.  He packed a light
backpack with two power bars and two bottles of water.  He included a handgun
he found in a neighbors house, and pedaled towards the city.

His house was east of Cincinnati in
a town called Anderson.  Decades before, it was a rural area, but urban sprawl
turned it into malls, banks, and subdivisions.  Before the plague, Paul
commuted 10 miles into the city for work, and with all the people in Anderson
doing the same, it could take up to 30 minutes to go those 10 miles. 

As Paul rode towards the city that
morning, he made several detours through popular subdivisions.  Trash was
everywhere.  Not the kind of trash he expected to find.  Not burned out cars
and destruction, but rather regular trash that accumulated over the last months
of civilization.  When everyone became sick, people stopped working or going
outside.  Garbage was not picked up.  There were mountains of trash as if there
was a garbage strike.  Birds and other scavengers ripped and picked at the black
plastic bags, spreading waste and debris across the lawns.  Grass, unmowed for
the last four months, grew out of control and went to seed, once manicured lawns
were overrun with weeds.    

Every neighborhood Paul visited was
the same, no people, mild damage, lots of trash.  There were a few houses where
the front doors were open, maybe a few windows were broken, but nothing was on
fire or showed signs of malice.  Paul was sure the open doors and broken
windows were from people scavenging for food when the stores went empty. 

After leaving the last subdivision,
Paul stopped at a grocery store.  He did not expect to find any usable food,
and he did not need any, but curiosity made him hop off his bike to take a look.

Outward appearances told Paul his peek
was a lost cause.  Several of the large glass bay windows, typical for grocery
stores, were broken.  Even though it was dark inside, he could see most of the
racks were knocked over and empty.  There were paper products scattered about,
but most, if not all of the food was gone.

He took a flashlight out of his
pack, walked through the broken front window, and strolled through the store.  When
the disease began late in the summer, and roads were closed, the trucking
industry failed.  With no one to move or deliver food around the country, stores
could only offer their remaining inventories.  The food shortage meant groceries
were ransacked and vandalized.

This market was no different.  Paul
waved a beam up and down the aisles, but he saw no food, no spoiled meat, not
even a box of lentils, nothing.  Paul grabbed a few packs of batteries from a
revolving display toppled on its side, a box of strike anywhere matches, and
left. 

He stopped, turned around, and
called “Hello?” 

He waited a few seconds, “Is there
anyone in there?”  Why a person would hide in a ravaged grocery store instead
of one of the thousands of abandoned houses, Paul did not know, but he thought
he should at least try and find other people.  “Hello?”  He called out one more
time.  There was no answer.

He slung his pack, jumped on his
bike, and continued downtown.  He passed the baseball and football stadiums,
the financial district, the urban neighborhoods, the university area, and ended
his ride through a high end area close to the city named Hyde Park.   He pedaled
slowly, calling out for people with his “hello?”  Paul received no response.

He rode down Observatory, his
favorite street in Hyde Park.  It was a beautiful road ending at Ault Park, a wonderful
public space that he and Rachel visited regularly.  Paul rode through one of
the 25 most populated cities in the U.S. and did not see a soul.  He did not
see any signs of life, a light, a fire, or smoke from a chimney.  He did not
hear a sound, a horn, a gunshot, a car, or a bike bell.  He was alone.

He sat on a stone bench in the park
for over an hour.  His head was in his hands for much of the time.  Why did he
not help?  He might have prevented all of this, or most of it, if he had just
volunteered to have his blood tested for a cure. 

Paul rode back to his house.  He
took a shower on his deck using his solar shower, a black rubber bag that
warmed five gallons of water in the sun and used gravity to dispense the warm
water out of a small shower head onto a cold Paul.  He decided to pack his
things and ride to Hank’s house in Dayton.  There was no reason to stay in
Cincinnati, and there was no reason to stay locked in his house.  The world was
over.  He had to find a place to survive the winter, and surviving with his
brother was going to be easier than surviving alone.  He hoped Hank was still
alive.

The next morning he woke up and
hitched a baby stroller attachment, scavenged from a neighbor, to his bike.  It
was like a two wheeled crib with an orange tent over the top, and zipped a
child in for rides.  Paul loaded it with memorabilia, food, extra clothes,
water, etc…  He did not know how the roads would be up to Dayton, and decided
to travel light and on two wheels.  The roads around Cincinnati were clear, but
that did not mean he could get a car to Dayton.  There could be parked car
jams, accidents, road blocks, and bridge destruction.  A bike afforded Paul
options and the ability to travel between and around obstructions.

The ride to Hank’s house was about
80 miles.  Paul was not sure he could make it in one day.  The days were
getting shorter, and he was towing a stroller, which would weigh him down.  He
hoped to be up there by early evening, but picked a few points south of Hank’s as
contingency stops. 

Paul took weather forecasts for
granted his entire life.  What is it going to be like today?  Is it going to
rain tomorrow?  Will a storm blow in?  Paul was riding blind to Dayton.  For
all he knew it could be sunny in the morning before dropping 40 degrees and snowing
by the end of the day.  It was December in Ohio.  When the current warm front would
end was a guess for Paul.  He hoped the answer was a few days from this
morning. 

Paul went into the back yard to say
goodbye to Rachel.  He cried, made his peace, and stood at the end of his
driveway by 9am. 

Paul gave his home of 10 years one
last look.  He and Rachel had been happy here, blissfully happy.  They carved a
wonderful life with each other. 

That life was gone.  It died with
Rachel.  He turned and pedaled towards his new life.  There was little chance
he would ever be as happy again, but whatever lay ahead for him in Hanover was
better than living in the shadow of his former life.

Paul picked up highway 75 North
towards Dayton.  Unlike the day before, he did not call out in search of
others.  He put his head down and rode.