After the Event (7 page)

“You’re not being fair to him.”

Alec grabbed another piece of wood and threw it in the back of Jack’s pick up. He didn’t trust Trent. He didn’t trust the man not because he didn’t like him, but because he wasn’t trust worthy. Ben was desperate for a friend and Trent fed off of that. Given enough time the man would have caused more damage than he did,

“You can be quiet all you want but you know I’m right.”

Alec took a break and turned to Ben. The boy had the same stubborn look on his face that he had seen millions of times in the past, only then it was being used on their mother. “You’re not right, you want to be right, and you might be partially right.” He saw Ben’s face light up for a brief second. “But you know dad and I are partially right too.” Ben’s face returned to its stubborn form. “It would have only taken Trent a few days of watching us and talking with you to see that we’re not bad people. Instead he asked you questions to learn where our stuff was and kept hidden away.”

Ben grabbed a large piece of wood and attempted to throw it in the back of the truck but it was a little too heavy.
The piece of wood made it half way and fell back to the cold hard ground and Ben followed it there a second later. He picked himself up from the ground and gave Alec a look of pure hate. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. He’s just cautious. You have to be to survive in the wild. He wouldn’t have hurt me and he wouldn’t have hurt us.”

“That isn’t entirely true.”
Trent walked out from behind the truck. “I’m sorry Ben but your brother is right.”

Ben stumbled back a few feet.
“Wha…..what do you mean?”

“I knew within the first week that you all were just a family trying to survive.
I knew you all weren’t likely to hurt me or try to steal my supplies.” Trent then turned to Alec. “But that doesn’t mean I was going to try and rob you all. I….I’m not the most social person in the world, never have been. Before the world went to shi-,” Trent glanced over at Ben, “Before the world went dark I didn’t have a lot of friends. I’m not good with meeting new people and in large groups I tend to get a little sick to my stomach. It was easier to hang back and let you all be. I knew that if you needed my help I would step in and you all were likely to do the same if I needed help.”

“You need to get out of here.”
Alec’s voice came out as a growl. The man wasn’t more than a twig but deep down Alec knew he wouldn’t stand much of a chance against him, but that didn’t stop him from pretending that wasn’t the case. “You hurt my brother. I don’t care what your plan was. You leave us alone and we’ll leave you alone.”

Trent was quiet for a second.
“That’s understandable.” Trent started to walk away then turned back after a few steps. “I set up snares to catch small animals. It makes for a good meal. Come this winter I’m sure good meals are going to be hard to come by. If you all want I can set some up around here, even show you how to work them.”

“We’d appreciate that.”
Alec heard his father’s voice come up from behind him. Grant stopped directly behind Alec. “But right now I agree with my son, you need to leave.”

Trent nodded his head and paused, “I’m sorry Ben.”
He then walked off.

Ben stood alone with a look of confusion on his face.
When Alec started to walk towards him the boy ran into the house..

“Give him some time.”

“I don’t like that he’s hurt.” He said to his father.

“He’s going to be regardless.
Give him a while and he’ll realize that we’re on his side.”

Alec glanced at his father and saw the look of concern on his face as he stared off in the direction where Ben took off.
Grant looked back at Alec and he quickly looked away. “And what about Trent?”

“I don’t think the man is evil but we should still keep an eye out.”

Alec almost said thanks but stopped himself, he wasn’t sure why but he wasn’t ready. Instead he nodded his head and began placing wood into the back of Jack’s truck. After a few seconds Grant joined him and together, in silence, they prepared for winter just as the snow began to fall once again from the sky.

They had lost track of time but Grant was pretty sure it was January. The cold wind battered their home causing everyone to hunker around the wood stove. The fire inside blazed bright radiating a wall of heat that reached out to cover most of the room, but if you walked outside that barrier the cold took your breath away.

That was where Grant found himself now, outside the warmth of the wood stove, outside the old walls of the house that at least attempted to keep the howling winds at bay.
He looked out across the open field and his eyes were filled with nothing but the bright white glow radiating off of the snow. Even with his eyes squinted he could barely stand to stare out in the open for more than a few seconds.

“Kinda strange, thinking you need sunglasses when you can’t even see the sun.”
Trent said as he came up behind him.

Grant nodded his head slightly and allowed the man to slowly trudge through the snow past him.
He watched the man pass and continue down towards a grove of trees where they had set a few snares. In the afternoon Grant, Jack, or Trent would bundle up and attempt to hunt. Hunting was becoming increasingly difficult, and there were days when they got by on scraps. Grant was hesitant to admit it but Trent was a godsend. The man knew how to set snares around their property and many days it was because of him that they had a meal. A squirrel wasn’t much spilt up between 7 people but it was better than nothing. Because of this Grant had allowed Trent to move in with them, much to the chagrin of Alec.

Trent squatted down and began rummaging through some nearby brush.
“Shit.”

Grant walked up behind Trent and didn’t need to ask what was wrong.
The last snare they had set was also empty. It was going to be a night without food, and it wasn’t the first time they had faced that situation.

Trent stood up and saw the look on Grant’s face.
“I can swing by Jack’s, cut a hole in the lake, and see if I can catch a couple of fish.”

Grant had spent several hours sitting on
top of the lake huddled over a small hole in the ice with no luck. He didn’t believe Trent would have much more luck then he had. He shook his head, “It will be dark in an hour or two, by the time you get there you won’t have much time to catch something.”

“I don’t mind trying.”

“I appreciate that.” Grant began taking inventory in his head. Yesterday one of the snares had caught a raccoon and they had torn through it pretty quickly. He could check but he was pretty sure there was nothing left but fur. He could sit out near the north tree line until dark and see if any deer happened to wander through. Grant knew he could probably sit out there for days and might not see anything but he couldn’t just go back empty handed.

“Grant I can head back over to my place.”
Grant gave Trent a questioning look. “I have a couple of old military rations over there. I’m not sure if they are any good but it should be enough for the little ones to have something in their stomach tonight.”

Grant stood there for a moment in the biting wind looking at Trent.
He knew why he still struggled to trust the man; by Trent’s own admittance he was using Ben to gather information on him, but Grant also had to admit if he had wanted to cause them harm he could have done that well before he was caught. Since then Trent had proven himself over and over again.

“I was saving them in case of an emergency and it feels kinda like an emergency now.”
Grant didn’t say anything he just shook Trent’s hand. “Speaking of which, is she feeling any better?”

“You go grab your rations and I’ll head back to the house to find out.”
He knew Trent wasn’t asking about her immediate well-being but the longer they stood out in the empty field the longer she was laying there sick with nothing in her stomach.

Trent headed off in one direction while Grant headed towards the house.
The walk back to the house seemed to take an eternity, with the cold winds stinging his face and the deep snow catching his feet every time he attempted to take a step. By the time he finally got back to the house his legs ached and his face felt numb.

When he opened the door it felt like a wave of warmth washed over him.
Despite this he knew once his body adjusted the inside of the house wouldn’t feel as warm as it needed to be. He shook off his snowy clothes and walked into the sitting room where the wood stove was located. Huddled around it were his children. This was how they survived now. They wore as many clothes as possible, sat around the wood stove with a blanket or two, and kept the fire going.

All of this would be difficult enough but for the last week Alya had become very sick.
It started with a cough, turned into a fever, and was becoming worse by the day. What little food they were able to give her hardly ever stayed down.

Alec never left her side.
As she lay asleep bundled in blankets Grant could see her shivering uncontrollably, but he knew from experience that she was probably radiating more heat than the stove itself.

Jack walked out of the room and motioned for Grant to follow.
Grant followed him into the kitchen which at the moment felt more like a freezer. The man’s face reflected exactly how Grant felt at the moment.

“Nothing?”

“No, but Trent said he has some old rations that might be able to put a little bit of food in the kid’s stomachs.”

“Better than nothing I guess.”

Alec watched as the fire danced gently over the wood. He found it was easy to sit here for hours at a time just watching. Of course it was either that or step away from the wood stove only to be met by the bone-chilling cold.

Joseph nuzzled up beside him while Alya was sound asleep in his lap.
The warmth coming from the wood stove was matched only by the warmth radiating from his little sister. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do. Most of the time she was asleep and even when she was awake she seemed to be far away. Alec would spend hours trying to get her to eat something and the few times he was successful the food wouldn’t stay down. It was too similar to his mother. He had watched her slowly wither away and he wasn’t about to watch the same thing happen to his sister. Just as he decided he needed to talk to his father Joseph said something. It came out as a quiet little mumble.

“What did you say Joseph?”

The boy didn’t move and just continued staring blankly into the fire. “Do you think Ally hates me?”

The question took Alec by surprise and for a second he just sat there dumbfounded.
When he finally came to he pulled Joseph up so they were eye-to-eye.

“Ally doesn’t hate you she loves you.
Why in the world do you think she hates you?”

The boy looked away and shrugged his shoulders.
“She…..she’s always mean to me.”

Alec tried to think back to a time when Alya was mean to Joseph and he couldn’t come up with anything.
He couldn’t even come up with a time they got into a fight. Alec and Ben loved each other but when they were younger there was hardly a time when they weren’t at each other’s throats.

“When has she been mean to you?”

“She’s always picking on me.”

Alec smiled.
This time when he thought back he couldn’t remember a time where Alya wasn’t picking on Joseph. “Joe, just because she picks on you doesn’t mean she hates you. It doesn’t even mean she is trying to be mean to you.”

Joseph looked confused.

“You know that I love you right?” Joseph nodded. “How do you know that I love you?”

“Because you’re nice to me.”

“And how am I nice to you?”

Joseph sat in silence for a moment and shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know, you play pretend with me, and watch after me.”

“Exactly.
That is how I show you that I love you, by playing pretend and watching over you. Not everyone shows their love in the same way. Sometimes people show their love through ways we might think are weird.”

Once again Joseph was in deep thought then suddenly he met Alec’s eyes and there was a look of surprise on his face.
“You mean Alya picks on me because she loves me?”

The smile on Alec’s face was the strongest since everything went dark.
“Every time Alya picks on you she is telling you that she loves you.”

“That’s weird.”

Alec ran his hand through Joseph’s hair and the boy nuzzled back into his side. After a few minutes of silence Joseph laid his hand gently on Alya’s head.

“Alec?”

“Yeah little man?”

“Is Ally going to get better?”

“Yeah Joe, I’ll make sure she gets better.”

After a few minutes Alec could hear soft snores coming from Joseph.
Alec stared back into the fire and watched as the flames slowly broke down the piece of wood into nothing more than ash.

It was time he talked to his father.