Bugging Out (11 page)

They’d come again two nights earlier. Probing my outermost ring of sensors without advancing further. I was suspecting they’d discovered I was aware of their presence. It could be that they were testing my defenses, if you could call it that. I didn’t want to. Their motive, as yet, was a mystery to me.

Focusing again on the repairs to be made, I drew the hammer back and swung it again and again, driving nails through the shingles, the repair proceeding uneventfully until I missed my mark, the hard steel head of the tool striking the edge of a loose bit of bracing. The foot-long piece of wood was launched upward, spinning its rough edge toward my face. I ducked and turned away, the length of lumber sailing past and thudding across the roof deck, tumbling over the edge and disappearing almost silently into the slushy earth below.

My heart raced for an instant, from the abruptness of the near miss. But as it stilled, and I calmed, a more worrying realization rose—I could have been hurt.
Actually
hurt. Not from some fall off the roof that could kill me, but from a simple gash laid by dirtied wood, some infection possible, if not likely.

I was not prepared for that. I’d gathered all types of medical supplies. From bandages to makeshift splints. I could even suture a wound too large to be bandaged. Every conceivable over-the-counter medication was in my first aid kit. I had everything anyone might need.

All but antibiotics.

It had simply never occurred to me that I would need any back when I could have cajoled a prescription out of my doctor. Now, with a fraction of an inch separating me from a wound which could have brought on infection, I knew I’d screwed up. And I had to correct that. Doing so meant one thing.

I’d have to venture into civilization.

I
saw the bone on the sidewalk near the alcove of the flower shop. It was long and buttery in color, picked clean of flesh, and lay near the blackened stubs of burnt down logs. A few cinderblocks had been placed around the makeshift fire to create a windbreak. There was no one in sight, and no sound but the stiff breeze rushing past me, tossing trash and twigs, whistling as it washed through the metal frames of store awnings stripped of their fabric. For a moment I stood still, finger nearer the trigger of my AR than a moment earlier, sampling the silence that whispered through downtown Eureka, a scant few miles from the Canadian border. I was waiting for any sign that the person, or people, who’d been here still lurked in the area. When I was satisfied that I was alone I focused on the bone and convinced myself that my first instinct, my first fear, had been correct.

It was a human bone. The long bone from the leg. The thigh. One of the meatiest parts of a human being, thick with flesh and muscle. All of that was gone here. My mind tried to use words like ‘missing’ or ‘taken’, when what I knew to be true was that the meat had been cooked down and picked off this bone over the fire that had been here.

Picked and eaten.

That part of the new existence had begun. Cannibalism. It did not surprise me that such a thing would come to be, but still the fact that man had the capacity to feast upon his fellow man when the need arose brought a chill to me. One deeper than what the weather lay upon my skin.

But even the horror of seeing what I was confirmed one fact, uplifting in a small way—there were others. People still trying to survive. Men, women, maybe children hanging on. If just barely.

I left the sight behind and entered the front of
Keeping It Reel
, the fishing store that Keith Markey ran when the world was whole and filled with sound, and smiles, and the scent of cool green days. Not the thick stench of decay. The front door had been broken in, windows smashed. Display cases lay toppled on the floor. Their contents, what hadn’t been looted, was scattered across the space, from entry to the register counter. That device itself, which once held cash and spat receipts, was upended, its drawer open and empty. Someone, at some point, had decided that, despite the chaos enveloping civilization as a whole, having a pocketful of tens and twenties was a decent idea. Perhaps it was their bone cooked to black I’d seen outside.

I moved past the counter, stepping over more merchandise, broken and discarded, and passed the once pristine tanks that Keith had tended with such care. Tropical fish once swam in the bubbling waters. Now, just a single slender carcass floated atop the putrid water, the rest having become food for the last survivor. The need, if not the desire, to eat one another crossed species, it seemed.

Beyond the tanks were a wall of shelves still relatively intact, though every item upon them was tossed about the floor below. I slung my AR and crouched, sifting through the debris, separating out plastic bottles, scanning each one. It was a running joke that Keith Markey ran a store where you could buy the implements to gut a fish, or to mend another’s infected fin. His philosophy, he once shared with me, was that you ate trout, and admired most everything else through glass. Beyond the tanks was where one would find the implements to aid them in the latter endeavor. And where I hoped to find a certain antibiotic designed to treat diseases that fish suffered, and which just happened to be chemically identical to specific antibiotics prescribed for humans.

I’d realized that seeking the same medication in a pharmacy would be pointless. They would have been cleaned out weeks ago, looted to the rafters. Just as the larger and more well-stocked stores in Whitefish certainly were. For the moment, though, traveling there was out of the question. This I’d decided after witnessing the firefight and its aftermath between my refuge and Whitefish. North to Eureka was the only choice I had, the only choice I’d given myself, and it was where, finally, I struck pay dirt.

Bright yellow bottles of the aquatic antibiotic lay in a heap beneath a collection of aquarium decorations. I pushed the packages of faux treasure chests and miniature deep sea divers clear and scooped every bottle I could find into the cargo pockets of my pants, seven in all, more than enough, I hoped, for any potential injury requiring a course of antibiotics to treat. Finished, I came around the toppled shelves at the back of the store and turned toward the front door.

That’s when I saw the boy.

He stood just outside the shattered front door, on the sidewalk, staring in at me, remarkably bright eyes over thin cheeks. A quick appraisal of his stature set his age at about nine, likely no older. In his hand a candy bar of some sort was held in a death grip, upper portion of its wrapper peeled back, exposing the sweet, dark candy within. A smear of the treat darkened the skin around his lips. For a few seconds we just looked at each other. There was no fear in his eyes, just surprise.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hello yourself,” a woman behind me said, at the same instant I felt the round chill of a rifle barrel touch the base of my skull.

I didn’t dare turn. Without prompting I eased my hands from the AR slung across my chest.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said, and the rifle barrel jabbed hard against my skull, pushing my head forward.

“I will damn sure hurt you before you get the chance to do anything to us.”

She sounded something beyond desperate. Determined. Maybe committed. To what, I wasn’t certain. The boy, maybe.

“Your son?” I asked.

“Don’t concern yourself with us,” the woman said. “Do you have any food?”

“A little. In my right cargo pocket. Just some energy bars.”

I sensed the woman crouching behind, rifle still in contact with the back of my head, from a lower angle now. She reached to the pocket just above my right knee and probed it. Her hand came out with just what I’d described and she stood again in my blind spot. My gaze angled toward the boy once more. He had the chocolate bar to his mouth and was chewing slowly on a piece he’d just bitten off. The energy bars sailed past me and landed near the boy’s feet.

“Take those,” the woman instructed. “Put them in your pockets.”

“Do you have any more?” the woman pressed. “Anywhere?”

“I can get you some,” I told her, and again the rifle barrel jabbed against the bony flesh at the back of my head.

“Where is it?!”

This was beyond committed, I realized.

“WHERE IS THE FOOD?!!!”

I felt the weapon shudder in her grip. My deepest hope right then was that her finger was off the trigger.

“You’re not the only one afraid,” I said. She quieted. Fast breaths filled the space between us. “I’m afraid, too.”

“I’m not...”

She wasn’t professing any lack of fear. No, what she’d said was preface to more. To some statement relevant to the situation, be it the standoff between us, or the larger apocalypse that had befallen the world. Whatever it was, I decided to chance a move. To interject some understanding into the softening of her demeanor. Slowly, I began to turn, just my head at first, then the whole of my body. The rifle barrel came away from my skull and I felt the woman backing away before my gaze finally settled on her.

“You’re not what?”

It was a simple question I proposed. Just something to elicit some response as I appraised who I faced. She was in her early thirties and pretty, even with the folds of skin that had appeared on her face where muscle and fat had once given contour to her appearance. There was a clear resemblance between her and the boy, in the eyes, more their shape than any similar coloring. He had thinned, but nowhere as much as the woman had. Clearly she’d been diverting sustenance to him, to her own detriment.

This was a mother’s love I was witnessing.

“You’re not what?” I repeated calmly.

For a moment she did as I had, took in the sight of me, then nodded toward the front of the store where her son stood, lever action 30-30 in her hands shifting in concert with the gesture.

“I’m not letting us turn into what’s out there.”

Out there. It took little imagination to understand what she was referring to. Or who.

Cannibals.

“I need food,” she said, then quickly added, “For him.”

She spoke as though seeking food for herself was selfish.

A mother’s love...

“Are you from Eureka?” I asked.

She shook her head quickly.

“Canada?”

Another head shake, less forceful this time.

“Do you want to tell me where you’re fr—”

“Where is the food?” she asked again, some low menace in her voice now. Her finger flexed on the old lever action’s trigger.

“Where are you from?” I pressed calmly.

Still she didn’t answer.

“Whitefish,” the answer came, from behind, the boy speaking. I glanced back to him. He took another bite of chocolate and slowly chewed it as he eyed me.

“There’s no food there,” the woman said. “We can’t go back there.”

I nodded, thinking. The reality was that I still had to, somehow, get this woman to a point of calm that we could converse without firearms being involved. Reiterating an offer I’d made a moment before might open the door to that possibility.

“I do have food,” I said. “I can bring you some.”

She half smiled, but didn’t lower the rifle an inch.

“Yeah, you head off and leave us and we never see you again.”

“Yeah,” I said, concurring with what she was surmising. “I could do that. But what good does keeping me here do if you’re not going to end up like the cannibals?”

What I’d just told her sank in, slowly, and finally her weapon did come down, its muzzle pointed at the ravaged floor.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“I’m Sarah Elway.”

“I’m Jeff,” the boy said, slipping past to join his mother, who pulled him into a tired, one-handed hug against her hip.

I slid the AR slung across my chest under my left arm so that it hung behind me now. Sarah placed her lever action atop a dirty counter and groped at the edge for support. She was weak. Far weaker than I’d suspected. Her knees buckled and both her son and I grabbed her, setting gently down, back against an empty display stand.

“Give me one of those bars,” I told Jeff, and he reached into his pocket.

“No!” Sarah said sharply. “Those are for him.”

I took the energy bar from the boy and peeled the wrapper back, then twisted a bit from one end and held it out to Sarah.

“Eat this.”

She shook her head at my direction.

“Look, if you want him to eat, you’re going to need to eat.” I eased the piece of food closer to her. “He needs you.”

That seemed to register. Not that she’d never thought or accepted that, but to hear another lay it out, with the circumstances plain as day, was enough that she reached up and took what I was offering and slipped it into her mouth. She chewed, her eyes closing, as if some silent prayer had gripped her. Tears trickled from her eyes as they opened again and looked to me.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“For what? Putting a gun to my head? I’ve had worse happen on dates.”

She smiled at my attempt at humor, then took the rest of the bar from me and bit off another piece. As she held it I saw the simple diamond ring on the third finger of her left hand.

“Where is your husband?”

I knew it was a risk to ask. Especially in front of her son. Had some horror befallen him? Was that the reason for his absence from their immediate lives?

“He’s in the Navy,” Sarah answered, a distant hope to the way she said it. Some true likelihood that, whatever they were faced with, he was alive.

“We’re going to meet him,” Jeff said. “In Washington.”

Sarah smiled at her son and nodded, the gesture filled with pained hope. But hope nonetheless.

“Bremerton,” she said. “He’s on a submarine. We haven’t heard from him since before...”

“Because they can’t always send messages,” Jeff added quickly, wanting to counter any negativity implied by his mother. “They have to stay hidden underwater.”

“That’s true,” I told the boy. “I’ve heard that.” I looked back to Sarah. “Seems to me a pretty safe place to be is on a sub under the ocean right now.”

She accepted that assurance with a nod and a smile and kept eating, her son slipping even closer to his mother, curling up against her on the dirty floor. They were a pair. A team. Alone in what had become a built-up wilderness.