The No Where Apocalypse (Book 1): Stranded No Where (12 page)

I watched her disappear around the corner of the yard and down the road. While I’d prefer slightly older company, Violet’s mostly mature attitude was fine for the time being.

I stared at the shower. Maybe that would make me feel better.

Day 172 WOP

Marge decided it was mid-February, though I had thought that passed the month before. Nearly a half of year was gone and I found myself in a similar spot. No Where, the place I had almost died a few months back.

While I was unconscious, Violet found my calendar and marked the time for me. Somewhere in the middle of her one-month stay, she confessed to maybe missing a day or two. Truth be told I knew I had missed a few myself.

It didn’t really matter anymore, time. Or how we formerly perceived time. Days came and went. Months did the same. Once upon a time, at the start of winter, I spent most of my waking hours thinking about home. Now weeks passed before I could recall any of Shelly’s features.

My wife was small and slight, that much I remembered. Just how small and slight, that was not as clear. My only younger female reference for the past half year was Violet, and she was 13. And not a big 13. No, she too was small and slight.

Violet claimed to be 5-2. Okay, that made Shelly 5-5 I thought. But was she only three inches taller than the waif that chased after me every time I bumped the stump on the end of my left hand, trying to stop the bleeding? I couldn’t recall. Shelly had blond hair, sort of. Maybe more sandy blond, the type of color somewhere between golden blond and all out brown.

Shelly’s teeth were straight. Braces had been slapped on at an early age and she still wore a retainer to bed the last night I remembered from home. She had a lotion that she covered herself in before bed that smelled like honeysuckle. I could almost smell it, sitting on the couch, watching the snow fall again.

I remembered waking up to the fresh fragrance found in my wife’s hair. I never knew what shampoo she used; we had separate bathrooms and showers. When we did shower together, I was too busy with other things to do something as mundane as seek out her cleanser.

The bottle left in my crude shower in the cabin had the same fragrance. It drove me insane each time I caught a whiff of it. I wept alone at night, wondering if I would be home again, not here home but truly home.

My injury had a dreaded repercussion on my body — I’d lost a lot of weight. And just from a gunshot to the hand. I wondered how much more I would have wasted away if I had been shot in the thorax.

Once spring came, I had hoped to be on the road, Chicago bound. But the loss of significant weight made that seem like a dream. I’d first have to gain back the weight and strength required for a 400-mile walk. I had resized my belt twice already during this time. The slack on my waist signaled another round was due.

“You’re gonna have to put on twenty pounds at least,” Dizzy warned on one of his afternoon visits. “If you plan on making that trip, that is.”

Sitting next to him on the couch, I heard the concern his tone may or may not have intended to leak.

“I need to try,” I countered, depression filling my soul.

“I get it. I do. But,” he paused, seeming to search for the right phrase, “you might not make it, you know. People are claiming the roads will be full of vultures this spring. Desperate people, desperate times.”

“I need Shelly,” I stated. But he’d heard this all before, many times. “I need my wife.”

“You could have Marge, now that Warren’s gone,” he replied, trying to give me options.

Warren’s bug turned out to be a serious infection caused by a wood saw he scraped across his leg. By the time Marge discovered the true source of the fever, two weeks had passed. A week later Dizzy dug his shallow grave in the still frozen snowscape.

“They all moved in with Lettie, you know,” he added. “She’s been pressed depressed ever since. You two could hit it off.”

“I’m not interested in a romance with Marge, Dizzy. She’s almost twice my age.”

“What about Violet? She seems pretty sweet on you.”

My mouth dropped open as I glared at my friend. “I’m not interested in a child either. I want Shelly.”

He shifted on the couch, away from me, sensing my irritation with his ideas. “Lettie says there’s trouble all over. Covington’s rotten, Amasa is bad. She even heard word that Green Bay has been overrun by some kind of flu. People dying in droves down there. Everywhere I guess.”

And that left me here, smack dab in the middle of Shit’s Creek. Too weak to run, too strong to die.

“There’s got to be more than just surviving, Dizzy. There has to be.”

He rose and strolled to the window. “Another man came through last week. Had a dozen followers or so. You see them on the road?”

I nodded once. I had seen their group, all dressed in dark clothes, looking like their last bath came days before this all happened. But I didn’t give a damn about whatever kind of crap they might be spreading.

“Word is that what that fellow told Frank late last summer was God’s honest truth,” Dizzy continued, wiping away some dust from the sill with a finger. “The whole country is down, no power anywhere. Some people seen some older running vehicles on the road, here and there. I sure ain’t seen any myself. No phones neither. Says its real bad everywhere. God’s wrath or something like that. Might even be worldwide.”

“Bull shit,” I answered, refusing to even peek in his direction.

“Some say the nuclear plants melted down after the power went out. Half the country is covered in radiation.” I heard him approach my spot. “Thought about that? There’s plants like that all around Lake Michigan. It could be real deadly south of here. This may be the safest place in the country right now.”

I glared at him and his rumors sold as logic. None of this was new to me. I wrote it off as Dizzy not wanting to lose a friend and nothing more.

“It can’t be like that. It just can’t be.”

He shrugged away my tense words. “Why not?”

“Because I need hope, Dizzy. I need the hope that someday I’ll get out of this place.”

Shaking his head at me, he made his way to the door.

“Remember what they say about hope, Bob. You can crap in one hand and hope in the other. But you know damn well which one is gonna fill up first.” I heard the door creak open. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Hang in there.”

Damn him, damn his logic. And damn this world if that’s how bad it’s become.

Day 245 WOP

Spring arrived with a thunderstorm just before dawn. The rolling thunder mixed in with the last of my dreams and damn they were good dreams.

I was at a backyard cookout at my place. Everyone was there. Shelly and my friends, both of our parents, my brother Bud, her kid sister Molly (who hated Bud with a passion, not that he ever figured that out), and even some of the neighbors we had an occasional beer with.

There were brats and burgers on the grill. God they smelled good. The beer boiling the brats was full of onions and a stick of butter. The pungent hops, mixing with the sweet onions and butter. Then the hearty medium-rare well-seared burgers. With buns the size of dinner plates, toasted and buttered.

I manned the grill, flipping burgers, stirring the brats occasionally, and sharing jokes with Dad and Bud. It was as if I were really there.

Shelly had set a beautiful table with bright red plates and a billowing white tablecloth. The setting was serene. The sun was setting, birds were chirping, and in the corner of the backyard, several rabbits ate in our garden. Shelly laughed, seeing them chomp at her lettuce. Normally she would have chased them away with a broom. But for some reason, she found them entertaining and quaint.

When it came time to eat, I made an extra plate up and snuck inside. In the corner of the living room sat Frank, in his chair from home. I spread a napkin on his lap and laid the plate on top of it.

“I’m happy you’re here, Frank,” I said, watching him stir the gooey brown beans with his cragged finger.

He looked up at me, his face tight with either anger or concern — I couldn’t decide which it was.

“There’s a storm coming,” he replied, his voice booming. “You need to be ready, and you’re not.”

In the distance, I heard the thunder. When I turned to the window, lightning streaked across the now dark sky, blackened by storm clouds. The wind blew strong, tossing the plates and cups from the elegant table.

When I turned back to my friend, he and his chair were gone. In their place, the carpet smoldered. Stomping my foot on the charred carpet, flames erupted below me. I went to scream, but thunder muffled my cries.

Bolting up on the couch, I shook the dream from my head. Outside, rain ran from the roof like someone had turned on a giant hose. Though I knew it was morning, well after sunrise, the storm clouds gave the appearance outside of evening. Another round of lightning followed by thunder brought me to full consciousness.

It was time to go visit Frank.

If I were honest about things, Frank was the closest thing I had to a father up here. Though he was ornery and argumentative with most, he always treated me decently. When he spoke, I could tell he was the kind of a man who’d lived by the golden rule: treat others as you wished to be treated. Frank was a real no bullshit kind of guy. I liked that about him.

If Frank was my wilderness father figure, that made Lettie my mother. Even though she’d never wed, never bore a child, had very few kin (as she called them) she was still a loving caring human being. Her iffy past life meant nothing any longer. That was then, it was what she had to do to live, and it was over.

It seemed almost comical to me that Frank and Lettie knew one another from the old days; Frank a salty sailor, Lettie the local favorite at the strip club. Even with their sullied pasts, they remained lifelong friends. That told me something about these people, about their characters, about their souls.

Dizzy was the cousin that no one wanted to admit being related to. His exterior was hard to get past. Through and through he was a woodman. He acted like one, lived like one, even smelled like one. He was unique, no way around that. But he was a loyal friend.

Many times, mostly at night as I planned my escape, I wondered what life would be like without this trio. Though they had no reason to, they had shown my kindness, support, and generosity in a time when others turned away strangers. And that’s what I had been to them.

Waiting for the rain to end, I packed a bag to take to Frank. I had a treat for him, besides the six jars of venison that probably needed to be eaten. Declaring Marge’s depression over, Lettie turned her loose in the kitchen and cookies began to appear on my doorstep. Crumbly tan sugar cookies. I figured Frank would enjoy a dozen or so.

Day 247 WOP

Two days of off again on again rain kept me inside my cabin. I was going to Frank’s, but I wasn’t trudging through downpours that would leave me soaked for days.

The rain had washed away the last of winter’s white, I noticed. Here and there in the woods I saw a few remnants of snow, but the road was clear. Walking was a whole lot easier without putting on the small pink boots. Though I did detect a hole starting at the front of my sneakers.
 

Dizzy and I were going to have to “shopping” soon. That’s what Dizzy called his planned raids on nearby vacant cottages. Pillaging was probably a better description. But it wasn’t like someone would be showing up anytime soon to visit their vacation hideaway. So I adopted Dizzy’s logic, what these folks would never know was fine. No one got hurt in the deal.

The trees along the road with their skeleton arms moved softly in the breeze. It would be another month before leaves appeared, according to Dizzy. As best as anyone could tell, it was somewhere around April 15
th
. A smile lit my face as the sunshine warmed my soul. Tax day, but not this year. Perhaps never again.

Walking down the middle of the highway a thought came to me. Frank knew nothing of my injured hand. I wondered what his expression would be when I showed him the missing digit. Would he laugh, would he cuss out rotten people, or would he simply take a hit of brandy and tell me
that’s the way it goes sometimes
?

My stamina was low, so the trip took longer than normal. I heard my stomach grumble as I rounded the last bend before my destination. Maybe one of these jars of venison would have to be eaten right away, along with several cookies. Yeah, sugar cookies and tepid brandy. That sounded okay.

I stopped short when Frank’s place came into view. Studying the scene carefully, I noticed the front screen porch door open, shifting back and forth with the wind. I patted my pocket and found the Glock. Pulling it out, I approached with caution. Gone were the hunger pains, replaced by a tight feeling in my gut.

The house felt cold as if no fire had burned in the past week, maybe longer. Aside from the screen door being opened, the main door sat ajar as well. Something wasn’t right here.

I called Frank’s name several times, the final time shouting it loudly. No response.

The place looked picked over. Every cupboard door was open. His pantry had been raided. Only a single half-full jar of peanut butter was left, sitting alone on the middle shelf. Whoever grabbed Frank’s food, didn’t want peanut butter.

Creeping down the back hall, I checked one bedroom — empty — and then the bathroom, which was also vacant. That just left the final door at the end of the hall. The room I believed to be Frank’s.

For some stupid reason, I knocked on the white painted door and called his name again. I guess it was just a courtesy, my proper upbringing coming through even when my skin crawled with fear.

Opening the door the smell hit me first, causing me to pull my gloved bad hand to my face, covering my nose. It was easy to find the source of the smell — the terrible smell of death. Frank splayed in his bed, covered to his chest with a white comforter. His glasses laid on the bedside nightstand, his arms by his sides.

To another, it might have appeared he was sleeping. But I knew better; Frank was dead.