The No Where Apocalypse (Book 2): Surviving No Where (3 page)

Bob Reiniger - 1, Winter - 0…so far for this trip.

Just before I made it to the road, some 30 or 40 yards from my own front door, I found myself struggling through the waist-deep snow. As much as I tried, winter had a few tricks of its own. Backing up and staying on the driveway, I finally found a better path covered by a mere two-foot snow fall. The score was even I told myself.

When the disintegrating road was clear, I could make it to Lettie’s in a little less than an hour. Snow covered? Try two, sometimes three hours. And it was all work. This was one of those days, and something told me I’d be spending the night with them.

Year 2 - mid winter (still) - WOP

The heat in Lettie’s place was much more moderated than back at mine own shack. Here it stayed a nice temperature where you didn’t have to take off clothes and then an hour later put them back on. Sometimes I thought about staying with them, as they begged me to. But I like my own place, my own surroundings, my own life.

“Wolves been thick lately,” Dizzy stated. “Seeing lots of them almost every day. How about you, Bob? Same down there?”

He knew I fed them; even warned me about doing that. The difference was that he had company—human company—while I didn’t have that luxury.
 

“Oh, a few here and there I suppose.” I lied and he knew it. I could see it in his shit-eating grin.

“How’s your food holding up?” Lettie asked, fetching me a cup of coffee. The black gold was something I was lacking. Just another incentive to visit.

I scratched my beard, considering my dwindling food supply. “Twenty-six jars of venison, three jars of bear — not that I’ll eat it ever.” I had just counted the day before, so I knew my stock. “Couple dozen more of veggies, handful of potatoes.”

Lettie stopped her fussing and stared at me, a bewildered look covered her face. “Who’s gonna win? You or winter?”

That was the question, and a fair one at that. Purposely I’d cut back on my intake a few weeks back to save my shrinking supply. As far as we could tell, winter was past its peak, for this year at least. Soon major melting would happen and that would grant my freedom to roam the woods again.

When I arrived in this place, some 17 or 18 months prior, I was a terrible hunter. It took me a dozen tries to get my first deer. And I gave half of that away to Marge’s late husband, Warren. His story about his starving family rocked me at the time.

Nowadays I wouldn’t give anyone anything. Not without a decent trade. If I ate, I might survive. If I gave away my food to every man, woman, or child that begged for some, I would die. That’s just the way it was. No emotion, no tears, no remorse. If the other person was likely to die anyway, why should I share and run the risk of the same?

“I’ll be okay,” I answered Lettie, leaning back in the white-painted kitchen chair. “See anything from those folks in Covington this winter?”

Marge reentered the room right on cue. It was her pilfering of the much-needed drugs that caused our panic last fall.

“Nothing,” she answered in a huff. I detected underlying disappointment from her…almost as if she didn’t want the ruffians to leave us alone. “And they won’t be coming and we all know why.”

Peeking at Dizzy, I noticed him roll his eyes. “Now, sweetie,” he began, reaching for her but got a slap in return, “no one blames you for what you did, taking those drugs and all.”

“And I gave them all back,” Marge countered. “So there’s no reason to ever expect to see them again.”

I nodded but my mind disagreed.
Hollow words
, I said to myself.

Stuart Callies, his sister Susan, and her husband, Matt Weston, were at the forefront of everyone’s mind. We all knew we hadn’t seen the last of them or their murderous ways, Marge knew it too. Violet most likely still had nightmares of Susan dragging her from her bed and torturing her to death. The woman had left little to our imaginations.

“Probably be a lot more stragglers and bums on the road this spring,” Lettie added, chasing around her kitchen preparing some kind of meal for us. “And most likely more folks that will want to take away what’s ours, the way I figure.”

I noticed both Dizzy and Marge nodding without looking up. The battles we had fought were over, but more were perched on our horizon. With spring would come nice weather, tolerable at least. The nice weather brought people. And most of the people in northern Michigan had nothing compared to us.

Desperation was our plague. People without food, decent shelter, drinkable water, and any hope for a real life. How far of a leap was it to kill a man for his food, when you or your children were starving to death? If frostbite had claimed three fingers and four toes, even my decrepit shack looked damn fine.

We had to be ready. We had to be on-guard and ready for battle at any given moment. My own body count was five. I knew there’d be more. If I wanted to survive another year in No Where, there’d be more.

Year 3 - early spring - WOP

Chopping wood, surrounded by the last few drifts of snow, kept me warm. If I had to guess, it was late April. Maybe early May. But I didn’t know for sure and our calendar kid wasn’t very good at his job.

We assigned Nate, Marge’s nine-year-old son, this one task in all his time in No Where. Keep track of the days. Every day got a hash, but instead of crossing the hashes at five, he was to do it at seven. Simple enough for even someone his age to handle.

Or so we thought.

One afternoon last fall, Nate came to us as we dug the last of the potatoes from the sandy earth. Scrunching his face, staring at a piece of paper, he approached his mother.

“What’s wrong, sweetie?” Marge asked, as she ruffled his hair.

“What month do you think it is?” he asked, sounding more unsure than I would have thought our official calendar keeper should.

“Oh, late September,” his mother answered, getting back to her work. “Maybe a little before the first of October. What does your calendar say? Am I close?”

Instead of looking at his mother, he glanced at Lettie. “July nineteenth,” he said proudly.

I figured out why he watched the older woman. Her look of shock and disbelief caused even me to laugh.

She stormed his way and ripped the calendar from his hand. “Give me that damned thing,” the woman the kids referred to as Grandma Lettie groused.

She studied it carefully, nodding several times. Finally, she grasped the entire stack of papers and tore them in half. Handing them back to Nate, and the kid wasn’t even embarrassed by any of this, she spit next to him in the dirt.

“That’s what I think of your calendar keeping,” she huffed, and turned back to her harvest.

The month and day made no difference to me; it was early spring, and that’s all I needed to know. Time to get out and start chopping wood for next winter. Time to think about taking another deer. Time to keep a close eye on the road and all of the trouble it could bring.

I heard him before I saw him, but that wasn’t hard to do. This one didn’t try to sneak up on me. No. This one sang—loudly, and off key.
 

“
Glory glory alleluia, glory glory alleluia
…”

Frank would have heard this one coming, and Frank couldn’t hear a damned thing.

Knowing he was about to clear the tree line and spy me, I paused my work and turned. His last chorus rang out, loud and clear, before he stopped. Smiling broadly, he gave me a great wave from the road. Dressed in black from head to toe, his long gray beard popped out in contrast. Removing his dirty, black hat, I noticed his baldhead.

This type I knew. While they were mostly harmless, though crazy, I still stuck my Glock into my pocket before heading him off.

Religion had arrived. And by God, he was a happy one.

“Hello, brother,” he called out, taking long strides to greet me. “Glory be to God on this beautiful day. We are truly blessed.”

Apparently, he was living in some parallel universe where duckies and bunnies woke you each morning, filling you with sweet rolls and expensive strong coffee. Or he had a bottle hidden somewhere below his dark loose clothing. I assumed the second option.

“How can I help you today?” I asked, keeping a strong ten yards between us. My eyes floated over his swaying clothing, searching for the telltale bulge of a weapon.

“How can you help me?” he laughed. “How can you help me? Well, God bless you, son. In reality, I’ve been sent here to help you.”

Yeah, I’d heard this before. He was here to help me get rid of my stockpile of food most likely. “I could use some help chopping wood, I suppose,” I joked, trying to keep the conversation light.

He got serious, moving closer. “No son, I’m here to save your soul.”

“I’d rather you save my arms and hands,” I replied, patting at his sides. Behind him I found what I knew was there. He froze.

“And I think I’ll save myself some trouble,” I continued, pulling his long-barreled pistol from its back holder.

Staring at the shiny silver weapon, I whistled. The gun had to be almost a foot in length. Staring the barrel, I read the stamping aloud.

“Colt Model 44,” I said, grinning and giving the old fart a wink. “That’s some pretty serious firepower, old-timer.”

He nodded, wiping dried leaves from his scraggly beard. “Man has to protect himself,” he said in a light and easy tone. “Wolves up here, bears to the south, and road scum everywhere. An unarmed man is a dead soul I’m afraid.”

“You won’t mind if I hold onto this while we chat, will you?”

He smiled and patted my right shoulder. The strength of his grip impressed me. “Feed me and give me some water and you can play with that thing until I leave,” he answered forcefully. “And in the mean time, I’ll tell you what God has in store for you.”

Any other time I would have chased him off with not so much as a sip of water. However, this one intrigued me. Not only did he appear harmless, I could tell he believed whatever he was selling.

Most of the prophet types wanted you to lay down your work and follow them down the road. This guy was only interested in my soul…and a meal.

Given the fact that it had been weeks since my last human contact, it seemed like a darn good trade.

Year 3 - early spring - WOP

Watching him slurp down three plates of venison stew told me a lot about this fellow. First, he had a decent appetite. Probably hadn’t eaten much in the past week. Also by the way he ate—he used the fork I offered instead of his bare hands like others I had fed.
 

Mostly it was the fact that he ate and didn’t talk. I sensed whatever he had to say could wait. Eat first, give thanks to his host — and God, of course —, then talk. I could wait. I had the time.

“Not sure how you made that, son,” he said after licking his plate clean, “but your recipe has to be one of the best I’ve ever tasted.”

That was a lie, a flat out huge lie. My food was as bland as eating sand. Actually, sand probably had a little better taste, with the grit and all. But his sincere tone actually made me smile.

“Eaten a lot of venison in your travels, padre?”

He shook something I said off. “I’m not Catholic. I’m just referred to as Reverend Smith.”

“Since all of this?” I asked, waving a hand in the air. “Or have you always been a man of the cloth.”

Firmly, he nodded once almost as if it were a tic. “God came to me in the apocalypse, the
Darkness
as some people are calling it. Before…” he shook his head, “I was just a common sinner. Worst than most, I figure. But God showed me the light.”

I grinned. “In this darkness, God showed you the light? While He’s shitting on the rest of us, you got to see Providence? Please tell.”

He leaned back, folding his hands over his thin waist. “What is it that you desire that God hasn’t provided…even now?”

That was an easy one, even for me. “My wife,” I answered quietly. “She’s in Chicago; I’m stuck here without her.”

“How long have you been here?”

A small chuckle escaped. “Since two days before.”

“And yet you’re alive?” I nodded; he had me on that one. “And you have friends, other folks to depend upon?”

I thought about Violet and Marge’s kindness when the bastard shot my finger off. I thought of all the food Lettie handed me, expecting nothing in return. All the lessons Dizzy taught without ever being asked. And the hearty hugs Nate gave every time he saw me.

“Yes,” I replied, my voice barely above a whisper.

“You’ve been blessed,” he stated, staring through me. “Many have died. Every day people struggle to survive. You’re winning the battle; so many others are not. God has been good to you.”

“Where else you been?” I asked, steering the subject away from my many
blessings
.

He rubbed his baldhead, yawning before answering. “Been down almost to Green Bay, over as far as Stevens Point. Up through Wausau, Ashland as well. Ironwood, Marquette, even Escanaba.”

That was quite an impressive circle. My studies of a regional map last winter told me he’d traveled nearly 500 miles, maybe
 
further.

“What’s it like out there?” I asked, watching him watch me. “Where there are more people?”

“Not good,” he answered in a sincere tone. “A lot of killing has gone on; many have died from other causes as well. The old were the first, the ones who needed the most. Then the sick and the very young died soon after. Disease came with the first winter, killed more. Starvation came the following spring. Numbers of dead rose faster than burials. More disease last summer.”

That’s what I’d heard from the few others who dared the roads of No Where. We were actually safer and better off here than most other places.

“Any government left?”

He shook his head, letting his face fall. “It was gone so quick; we hardly ever knew we ever had it. Police, firemen, hospital workers… they all disappeared faster than I thought possible. Can’t blame them really. They were just trying to make it, like the rest of us.”

“Anyone have any idea what happened?” I asked. “You know, what caused all of this?”

A boney finger rose. “Nuclear attack.”