Grace turned from the table and Nora gave a smug look to Jason. He didn’t look it, but Nora knew he was glad, like she was, to have met Grace. It gave them hope about people and knowledge they needed.
There was still more to learn and Grace would be a great guide. They weren’t far from Champaign, and at the very least, even if the others never returned, Jason and Nora knew they weren’t alone in the world.
The first thought that ran through Meredith’s mind as she placed on the dungarees was, ‘Good Lord, I am wearing the pants of a sixty year old’. Rusty had given them to her. They were comfortable. Baggy in the rear and legs, snug in the waist. Despite being asleep for thirty years, Meredith hadn’t lost an inch off of her middle age bulge. But she figured at the rate she was eating or lack of eating, she would finally shed those pounds.
They had been with the Wrecker village for over two days. Every few hours it seemed someone else was getting sick. They needed healthy hands to help.
John had left hours earlier to head back and find Rusty. Maybe he had some herbs or something that could help. He was only a two hour drive away and Matthew used the map that Rusty gave them to show John the way back.
Rusty was a means to help and surely he would be happy to know that not all Wreckers were bad.
Bada woke without a fever, that not only made Matthew happy, but Meredith as well. While Ana improved, her husband did not. They had already lost seven people since Meredith and John arrived.
A virus, long since dormant brought in by a stranger. But how? If she and John had received a vaccine under the Genesis project didn’t the traveling stranger? How did it not work on him? Could the virus have been theoretically still in the air, the stranger not immune, just happened to catch it?
Matthew was no help at all with knowledge of the virus. He was still in a state of shock that a whole viable world existed outside of his area. He had ventured a hundred miles in all directions, saw no one else but war survivors and gave up long ago.
Now, he was ready to search once more.
He just didn’t have the means to travel so far, unlike Meredith and John who had that buggy.
She probed him for what he knew of the stranger. Which direction did he come from? Was he alone? How sick was he when he arrived?
He was fevered according to Matthew. Slightly fevered, coughing and weak. From what Meredith saw of the virus in the village, it took about eight to twelve hours to get symptomatic. So the stranger caught it twelve hours earlier? From where?
According to Matthew he stumbled in from the north gate.
What was north?
“Baltimore, New York, but those places were hit,” Matthew said.
Seeing how Matthew said he made it about a hundred miles in all directions and didn’t come across anything, led Meredith to believe the stranger traveled farther.
“How? On foot?” Matthew asked.
“The project set everything up,” Meredith said. “Supplies that were in their own type of stasis to remain fresh and outside the labs were instructions and transportation. So he had transportation, I am willing to bet. Did you go look?”
Matthew shook his head and exclaimed it hadn’t crossed his mind to look for more people or how he got there. He had only worried about the well being of the stranger.
So knowing Ana was better, they packed a small sack of supplies, and Meredith and Matthew headed north. If the stranger arrived and traveled by some sort of solar buggy or transportation left for him, surely, like John and Meredith, he hid it.
Meredith was bound and determined to find it. If for nothing else, to open up the world to Matthew and his people. A means to travel out and not be so trapped in such a small pocket of the world.
<><><><>
It was funny to Malcolm how everyone in Salvation kept boasting about the coffee. Clearly they didn’t know any better or couldn’t recall the days when everyone fought to be the perfect coffee connoisseur. It was good, but not great.
Of course his interactions with Salvation’s people was limited to who was permitted to be around him. Maggie promised that after they returned she would give him the grand tour.
Aside from him, Maggie and Trey, four others would be joining their journey to find the lost stations of Genesis. A virologist, historian and two military men.
Malcolm reiterated the story about the woman that shot his travelling companion. He was told unfortunately, those who lived outside of Salvation, especially those who lived alone were off balance at times.
Hence why they needed protection.
It was Maggie’s dream to see the wall removed in her lifetime. That started with a cure. They had taken much of Malcolm’s blood. That was a start. Finding something in one of the Genesis labs would be a great asset. But then they still had to reproduce it.
There were many born inside the walls and who had been there since there were young. They had never saw the ocean, the Grand Canyon or even a large natural body of water. All things that would be a new American Dream.
While sipping his coffee, Malcolm packed a small bag. They had given him clothing and new shoes. He was just about done when a knock came at his door.
Maggie poked her head in. “You have someone that would like to speak to you. He thinks you might have answers. You don’t have to.”
“Who is it?”
Maggie stepped aside and an older gentleman walked into the room. He was seventy, maybe a few years older. He was strong looking and his age was evident more so by his white hair and deep lines around his eyes and mouth.
“Thank you,” he said to Maggie and tipped his head. Then the man turned to Malcolm. “Thank you for taking a moment to see me. I had to fight for this.”
“It’s okay. What can I do for you, sir?”
“It’s a long shot. I know. But my wife was supposedly killed in that hotel explosion. They never found her body, only her wedding ring. I accepted that. Until the day you walked in through these walls and they said, you were at the hotel and were in some sort of freeze for thirty years. Just out of curiosity … were there any women there with you. Maybe some that were believed to be dead.”
“Yes,” Malcolm answered. “Many of them died. They didn’t wake up from the process. But I can tell you I committed to memory every single last name. So if she was there, even if she didn’t make it I can help you.”
“Thank you. Her last name was Lane.”
Malcolm blinked. “As in Nora?”
The man stumbled back. “You knew her?”
“Are you Rick?”
“Yes, I go by Richard now. Yes.” Rick said with excitement. “You know her.”
“Yeah. She’s great.”
Rick gasped out. “She’s alive?”
“Very much so. She went to find you and your daughters.”
“Our one daughters died.” His hand shot to his mouth. “This is a lot to handle.” He reached back and sat down. “Thank you. Thank you so much. I wanted answers. You told me more than I expected to hear. Will she be coming to Salvation?”
Malcolm exhaled. “I don’t know. If she can find it she will. Those of us who made it out of the project were supposed to meet up. But now I’m doing this thing with Salvation. I’m gonna try to get word to them. Try to meet up. Find them. I’ll tell her we met. She’s going to be very happy.”
“I’m not expecting a love rematch. I … I can’t. I since remarried.”
“You’re remarried?” Malcolm asked, instantly feeling bad for Nora.
“How will she handle it?”
“Hard to say.” Malcolm said. “Please remember, to us, it’s only been a couple weeks. Our feelings are still the same. Knowing Nora and how she is, I’m gonna say she’s realistic and won’t be hurt.”
“I don’t want to hurt her. I just want to see her.”
“She’d like that, I’m sure.” Malcolm reached out his hand to Rick and shook firmly. “I am very glad she has family alive.”
Malcolm finished up his packing and spent the rest of the time with Rick before he had to leave on the journey. Rick asked if he could go, but Maggie refused. Plus, Malcolm reiterated that should he not meet up with Nora, they could make their way here and wouldn’t Rick want to be waiting.
He got the information on Rick’s life, and Nora’s daughter. He assured Rick that Nora was going to be fine, but Malcolm knew that wasn’t the case. How could she be? Not two weeks earlier she was in a loving marriage.
That wasn’t Rick’s burden to carry. He believed his wife was dead.
Nora would face pain, but she’d move on, eventually. They all would have to.
There was no reverse, no ‘reset’ on what happened. Thirty years had passed and there was nothing they could do about it.
<><><><>
Rusty had taken an old map and made changes to reflect the state of the United States. It wasn’t really an old map to John, it was a land and country he had seen not weeks earlier. Rusty scratched out roads no longer viable and marked highways that were no more than trails.
What happened to the world?
It was known that there was a limited nuclear exchange on American soil. The solo journey back to Rusty gave him ample thinking time. He wondered what would have happened if they were released when they were supposed to. John would have come out of stasis in the thick of war. Or what if it were only a year or two.
The virus was out of control, there was no turning that back. Would John have survived? The worst thought for him was thinking about his family. How if he had been released decades earlier, how he would have had to watch them die. If, of course, he wasn’t killed with them.
A part of him was glad he missed it all. Missed the pain of losing family and the horror of nuclear war. All that was behind him.
The only bad thing was despite the fact that everyone he knew was gone and the cities he loved were dust, John still carried the memories and feelings of his former life. It wasn’t that he was spared the hurt, he was just experiencing it differently.
It was a quiet journey. He didn’t realize how much Meredith talked until he wasn’t with her.
He supposed Rusty would be like, ‘What the heck? I just left you’, he and John would have a chuckle, smoke some of that weed and John would enjoy the look on Rusty’s face when he told him about a Wrecker world beyond the savage ones.
John recognized the surroundings and route, albeit in reverse. He distinctively recalled seeing the old rusted mini van parked on the side of the road as they left Rusty’s property. A van rich with the growth of weeds and bushes, its own apocalyptic botanical garden. It had caught John’s eye, and now it was a landmark to let him know he had arrived.
He saw the dirt road just ahead and heard the dogs barking the moment he drove on the dusty road.
The horses had been turned out and were exercising in the fenced in area just to the left of the road. What surprised John was Scooter coming out of the house. Rusty’s son looked just as shocked to see John.
John stopped the buggy.
“Hey, John, everything okay?” Scooter asked. “You guys just left. Is Meredith alright?”
“She’s fine. We’re fine. I came back to see your father. Hoping he may be able to …” John stopped when Scooter lowered his head. “What it is? What’s wrong?”
“My father died this morning.”
It was as if John had been hit with a baseball bat. He stumbled back. “What? What happened?”
“Weirdest thing. Two nights ago he got sick. I came by yesterday and he was pretty bad. I mean real bad. Whatever bug he got, knocked him out. He never woke up, and died in his sleep.”
“I’m … I’m terribly sorry. I mean really sorry.”
“Yeah, me, too. He was all I had. He knew it though. He knew he was gonna get really bad and die.”
“How?”
“On his way back from taking you guys, he saw a Wrecker on the road. It was sick. My dad said it looked like the old virus. He was even gonna try to help him, but the Wrecker died. My dad just sensed the virus was back. After all these years, it’s back.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Me? I’m fine.”
“Scooter, was the Wrecker you father found a violent Wrecker. One of the ones that hurt people.”
“What other kind are there?”
“There are civilized ones,” John said. “We happened upon them and that was why I came back. This virus has hit there as well. We were hoping to get some of your father’s herbs. His medicine.”
“I don’t know if it can help, but I can get you some.” Scooter stepped back to the house. “There really are civilized Wreckers?”
John nodded.
“And they’re hit with the virus, too? Scooter shook his head. “Ain’t that the darndest thing? All this time, and the virus is back. Scary.” He walked into the house.
It was scary, in more ways than Scooter realized. John began to process his thoughts as he stood waiting on Scooter to get the medication. The stasis stranger that strolled into Matthew’s village was without a doubt the carrier of the virus there.
But what of the violent Wreckers over a hundred miles away? Or Rusty for that matter. John recalled waking to the sound of Rusty sneezing.
The only stasis strangers they were exposed to were him, Meredith and Grant.
John was fearful that when they woke from stasis, their presence woke the virus. If indeed they weren’t carriers themselves somehow.
And while they were determined to look for the living, something inside of John told him, that maybe that was a task they should put on hold. They were placed in stasis to ensure life, and John was starting to wonder if the best way to make sure the human race survived, was to stay as far away from everyone as they possibly could.